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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap ; f.;,Tnglit Xo. 



Shell... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



PERFECT 
HAPPINESS 



By Rev. HI J^. Davis of 



the Nebraska Conference 
Author of "Solitary 

Places Made Glad" 




Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings 

New York: Eaton & Mains 

1899 



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COPYRIGHT 1899 
BY THE WESTERN 
METHODIST BOOK 



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CONCERN 



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Preface 



/? 



CTHIS book is the result of earnest prayer. 
Some time ago I lay dangerously ill. 
Many of m^y friends thought I could not possibly 
recover, I did not know^ myself but what m,y 
work on earth was done. God saw fit ^ however^ 
to raise me up. 

After I recovered I began to ask God why 
he had spared Tny life^ and what special work 
he wanted m,e io do, I offered this simple 
prayer^ time and again: "6> Lord^ reveal to m,e 
the work I am, spewed to do^ and I will^ by thy 
grace ^ do ity 

After three fnonths^ prayer^ among other 
things clearly suggested to fne^ was the writing 
of this book. The work was all outlined in m^y 
own mind^ with but few exceptions^ just as I 
now give it to the worldy before a single sen- 
tence was written, 

3 



4 Preface 

I send this volume forth with the devout 

prayer that many who read its pages may be 

led htto the land of perfect soul rest, 

H. T. DAVIS. 

Lincoln, Nebraska, z8gg. 



Contents 

part I. 

PERFECT HAPPINESS PROMISED. 



CHAPTKR I. 

Page. 

Pkrfkct Happiness Promised, - - - - 9 



part II- 

PERFECT HAPPINESS CONDITIONED. 

CHAPTER II. 
Happiness Does Not Come by Chance, - - - 51 

CHAPTER III. 
Consecration, -------- 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
Motives to Consecration, - - - - - 71 

CHAPTER V. 

Thy W11.1, Be Done, - 89 

5 



6 Contents 



CHAPTER VI. 

Page. 

Saving Faith, - - 105 



CHAPTER Vn. 
Saving Faith, -------- 119 

part III. 

PERFECT HAPPINESS EXPERIENCED. 

CHAPTER Vin. 
WiTNKSSKS, - 131 

CHAPTER IX. 
Pi^KASUREj Versus Duty, 146 

CHAPTER X. 
The Pai^ace oe Pereect Peace, - - - - 165 

CHAPTER XI. 
Our Burden Bearer, - 175 

J}art IV. 

PERFECT HAPPINESS RETAINED. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Just as We Obtained it so We Retain it, - 186 

CHAPTER XIII 
Purified, then Tried, ------- 198 



Contents 7 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Page. 
Tbmpta'Mon, -- 203 

CHAPTER XV. 

Sins of Ignorance, Mistakes, and Infirmities, 
not incompatibi^e with the highest state 
OF Grace, -- 209 

CHAPTER XVr. 
Growth, --- 213 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Some Rui.es to be Observed in Order to Re- 
tain Perfect Happiness, - - - - 219 



PART I 

Perfea Happiness Promised 



CHAPTER I 

Perfect Happiness Promised 

Perfect Happiness ! Can it be obtained in 
this world? This is a question of the highest 
moment, a question sighed from the breasts of 
earth's teeming milHons in all ages. 

Happiness! Where shall we go to find it? 
^'Happiness ! this is what I want/' says every one. 
For this the Indian in his wigwam; the black 
man in "Darkest Africa;" the Hindoo in his 
jungle; the Chinese on their rice-fields, and in 
their crowded, filthy cities; the European and 
American in their palatial homes; the poor in 
garret and cellar and hovel, — these, the great 
mass of them, long and seek for happiness, but 
long and seek in vain. How many have sung: 

"I have sought round this verdant earth 
For unfading joy ; 
I have tried every source of mirth 
But all, all will cloy." 

Earthly aims, earthly hopes, earthly desires — 

all have failed. But, really, is this boon a stranger 

II 



13 Perfect Happiness 

to earth? Is it unknown to any of the denizens 
of this mundane sphere? Is it true that the 
snow-white dove of perfect peace has never nes- 
tled in the human heart? I am glad to say, No, 
this is not true. 

Perfect happiness is not an entire stranger to 
earth. Perfect peace has taken up its abode in 
many a heart, and made radiant many a life. 
"The peace of God that passeth all understand- 
ing" has made many a life a song of melody that 
will sound on forever. 

This priceless jewel all may have; it is within 
the grasp of every one. The rich and the poor 
may have it ; the well and the sick, the young and 
the old, the living and the dying, may possess it. 
If this be true, why is it that the masses of the 
people are not happy? Why does not wretched- 
ness spread her dark pinions, and soar forever 
away? The answer is easy. It arises from the 
simple fact that the masses of the people are 
seeking happiness in the wrong way. They are 
looking for it where it never was, and never can 
be found. 

One man thinks if he can control all the rail- 
roads of the nation he will be happy. And in 



Perfect Happiness Promised 13 

order to succeed, he will run up the stock of one 
road and run down the stock of another, make 
a corner here and a corner there, and do a thou- 
sand and one mean things; and when he has 
accomplished his end, he is not a whit happier 
than when he started out in life. 

Another man thinks if he can become the 
richest man on earth he will be the happiest. 
Croesus thought himself the happiest man in the 
world, because the richest; and because Solon 
did not consider him so, he was angry, and the 
philosopher soon found it best to withdraw, in 
order to save himself from the indignation of the 
enraged king. But w^hen Croesus lay bound 
upon the funeral pile erected by Cyrus, and the 
torch was about to be applied to the fagots, he 
saw that Solon was right, and that he himself was 
wrong, and in a tone of anguish and despair cried 
out, "O Solon ! Solon ! Solon !" Many a man 
who has made gold his god, and bowed at the 
shrine of mammon, has found at last that his 
"gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them 
is eating his flesh as it were fire." 

A millionaire died in New York City a few 
years ago. During his last illness he rebuked 



14 Perfect Happiness 

the pastor under whose ministrations he had sat. 
Among other things he said, "You ought to have 
crowded religion upon me." He asked his 
friends to sing. "What shall we sing?" "Sing," 
said the dying man, 

" Come, ye sinners poor and needy, 
Weak and wounded, sick and sore." 

He had lived a millionaire ; but died a spiritual 
pauper — poor and needy. 

Another man thinks if he can win the applause 
of men he will be happy. He longs to be at the 
top. His ambition is to climb to the highest 
pinnacle of Fame's proud temple; but reaching 
it, he is not satisfied. 

Edmund Burke, one of England's great 
statesmen, whose oratory thrilled not only Eu- 
rope, but the world, said, when standing upon 
the very summit of fame and earthly glory, "I 
would not give a peck of refuse wheat for all that 
is called fame in the world." 

Lord Byron, whose fascinating verse, poison 
though it be, has been read with delight by thou- 
sands, though courted by the rich, and flattered 
by kings and queens and the nobility of earth, 
was not satisfied. He drained the cup of earthly 



Perfect Happiness Promised 15 

pleasure to its dregs ; but was not happy. What 
was his own confession? "My life has been 
passed in wretchedness. I have longed to rush 
into the thickest of the battle, that I might 
terminate my miserable existence by a sudden 
death." 

Do earthly thrones bring happiness? Let the 
glittering diadems of kings and queens answer. 
*'We can adorn the head, but we can not satisfy 
the heart." 

Christ says of all the above characters, "They 
know not the things which belong unto their 
peace." They are blind — spiritually blind — be- 
cause they are seeking happiness where it never 
was, never will be, and never can be found. 

More than thirty-three hundred years ago, 
God said to a people dwelling east of the Medi- 
terranean Sea, "Happy art thou, O Israel; who 
is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord !" 
(Deuteronomy xxxiii, 29.) 

The Israelites were a people of diverse experi- 
ence. Their life had been a checkered one. 
They had been in Egyptian bondage for four 
hundred and thirty years, and had been deliv- 
ered ; they had been in the wilderness forty years, 



1 6 Perfect Happiness 

but had gone out, and had crossed over Jordan 
and entered the land of Canaan. Before their 
majestic tread their enemies fled in dismay. Jeri- 
cho's towering walls toppled to the ground. Ai 
was given into their hands. They went from 
conquest to conquest. Wherever they set their 
feet, the land was theirs. They were complete 
masters of every situation. At length every foe 
was conquered, and they had rest from all their 
enemies round about. "The Lord gave them 
rest round about, according to all that he sware 
unto their fathers ; and there stood not a man of 
all their enemies before them ; the Lord delivered 
all their enemies into their hand. There failed 
not aught of any good thing which the Lord had 
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to 
pass." (Joshua xxi, 44, 45.) 

There was not a single army of all the Canaan- 
ites left to make war against them. They were 
saved — perfectly saved — from all their enemies. 
They were dwelling in safety and perfect peace 
when God said unto them, "Happy art thou, O 
Israel!" Why were they a happy people? Be- 
cause they were a saved people : "Saved by the 
Lord." Here God gives us the key to all true 



Perfect Happiness Promised 17 

happiness. Salvation is the basis of all real and 
abiding joy. 

Perfect salvation brings perfect happiness. 
Many professing Christians are not perfectly 
happy, because they are not perfectly saved. 
They have not the complete victory over every 
foe, within and without. 

The Israelites were a representative people. 
Their history was a typical one, representing the 
spiritual states of the Christian under the gospel 
dispensation. 

The Israelites in Canaan, at perfect rest, con- 
tented and happy, with their enemies all con- 
quered, typify the Christian, who has reached 
the high plane of "perfect love." 

Different terms are used in the Scriptures to 
describe this completed work of salvation in the 
soul. 

It is called "perfect love." John says, "Per- 
fect love casteth out fear." (i John iv, 18.) 

It is called "holiness." Paul says, "And holi- 
ness without which no man shall see the Lord." 
(Hebrews xii, 14.) 

Paul also calls it the "fullness of the blessing 
of the gospel of Christ." (Romans xv, 29.) 



1 8 Perfect Happiness 

Hence many now, in giving it a name, say, 
"Full salvation/' 

It is called "entire sanctification." Paul, in 
his prayer for the Church at Thessalonica, says, 
"The very God of peace sanctify you wholly" — 
entirely, totally. 

Some call this great work "the higher life," 
and this phrase is not out of harmony with the 
Bible. God says, "An highway shall be there, 
and a way, and it shall be called the way of holi- 
ness." (Isaiah xxxv, 8.) 

Others call it "the rest of faith." This phrase 
does no violence to the divine record, for Paul 
calls it the "full assurance of faith." (Hebrews 
X, 22^ He who has the "full assurance of faith," 
has "the rest of faith." All these terms and 
phrases are used in describing the great and com- 
pleted work of salvation. This perfect salvation 
God offers to every one. 

I want to bring to the reader's view some of 
the "exceeding great and precious promises" 
bearing upon this subject. These positive prom- 
ises, made by God himself, prove beyond the 
shadow of a doubt that the priceless prize of 
perfect happiness is within the grasp of all. 



Perfect Happiness Promised 19 

But before quoting the promises, let me call 
the reader's attention for a moment to the typical 
nature of Israel's history. 

In the history of the Israelites there were 
three states : the bondage state, the wilderness 
state, and the Canaan state. Their wilderness 
state, however, must be divided into two periods. 

From the time they crossed the Red Sea until 
they reached Kadesh-Barnea, they represent the 
Christian in a justified state. 

But when they stood upon the borders of the 
promised land, only a few weeks after they left 
Egypt, and were in sight of the green fields, the 
vineclad hills and valleys, the rippling streams 
and bubbling fountains of that beautiful country ; 
and had samples of the Eshcol grapes, the pome- 
granates, and the figs; and God told them they 
might at once go over and possess it, but because 
of their cowardice and unbelief they turned back 
into the wilderness, — from that time on, for forty 
years, they represent the backslider. 

In the Christian's life of to-day, bating the 
state of the backslider, there are three states : the 
bondage state, the wilderness state, and the Ca- 
naan state. 



20 Perfect Happiness 

Some of us have passed through these three 
stages. How strangely have we been led by the 
Divine hand! 

We remember well when we were in the bond- 
age state — slaves to sin and Satan. We remem- 
ber when we were pursued by sin and guilt; 
when the right hand of Divine justice hung over 
us, and was ready to strike us down. We re- 
member, too, when we surrendered and believed, 
and the chains were stricken ofif, and we became 
God's free men. Then we understood the words 
of our Savior, ''If the Son shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed." 

What a shout of victory went up from Israel's 
thousands when they stood upon the eastern 
bank of the Red Sea, and saw their enemies over- 
whelmed in the flood ! 

Miriam with her timbrel struck the note of 
victory, and led the grand chorus of women in 
the triumphant song, "The horse and his rider 
hath he thrown into the sea." (Exodus xv, 21.) 

What a shout of victory, too, burst from our 
lips when we passed the Red Sea of doubt, and 
struck the bank of pardon ! 

How our souls thrilled with heavenly rapture! 



Perfect Happiness Promised 21 

That precious hour will never be forgotten. It 
is fresh in our memory to-day. It seemed then 
that we never should have another trial ; that the 
thrill of joy would last forever. But the ecstasy 
did not continue. The enemy assailed, and we 
gave way. We had victory, and then defeat; 
victory, and defeat again. We were not satisfied 
with our experience. We often felt we wanted 
something that we did not have. We were in the 
wilderness state — in the up-and-down state. If 
that has not been your experience, your experi- 
ence has been different from mine. 

For nearly nineteen years I lived in this wil- 
derness state — in the up-and-down state. Some- 
times I was in the light, and sometimes I was in 
darkness; sometimes on the mountain-top, and 
sometimes in the valley low; sometimes a con- 
queror, and sometimes a conquered vassal. 

Well, the wilderness state is better than the 
bondage state ; but the best state of all is the Ca- 
naan state. 

No one, perhaps, will deny for a moment the 
statement that the masses of professing Chris- 
tians are living on a very low plane — a plane on 
a level with the unsaved. Their acts and words 



23 Perfect Happiness 

are like the unsaved; in fact, many of them can 
not be distinguished from the unconverted. 

Why is it that there are so many nominal 
Christians in the world? Why is it that the tin- 
sel, the glitter of fashion, and the questionable 
amusements of the day, possess such a charm 
and wonderful fascination to so many members 
of the Church? Is it not because they are doing 
just what Eve did in the beginning, believing 
Satan rather than God? To-day, as in Job's day, 
Satan is "going to and fro in the earth, and walk- 
ing up and down in it," deceiving the children 
of men, cheating Christians out of perfect happi- 
ness here, and paralyzing all their influence for 
good in the world. 

Professor Drummond has well said, "What 
the world needs at this moment is not more of 
us, but a better brand of us." 

No truer words than these were ever uttered. 
What the world needs, what the Church needs, 
what individuals need, is a higher type of Chris- 
tians. 

We have attended social meetings, and have 
listened to the testimonies of professing Chris- 
tians, and from their testimonies you would think 



Perfect Happiness Promised 23 

they were the most unhappy people in the world. 
The burden of their testimony was deep sor- 
rows, great temptations, sore conflicts; "hard 
trials, great tribulations," was their theme; and 
having listened to their testimonies, I have said, 
"Well, if that is religion, I do n't want it." Is it 
any wonder that the world should say the same? 
Such testimonies repel, rather than attract. 

"Yes," some unconverted person is ready to 
say, "these gloomy, inconsistent Christians have 
been right in my way all my life." Well, my un- 
converted friend, if they are in your way, they 
must be before you. The thing for you to do is 
to get before them. "They were once in my 
way," says Sam Jones ; "but years ago I switched 
around, and got ahead of them, and they have 
never troubled me since." 

Why is it, I ask again, that we have such 
gloomy testimonies from those who are "heirs 
of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ?" Just 
think of it ! Heirs "to an inheritance incorrupti- 
ble and undefiled, and that fadeth not away;" 
heirs to an undivided inheritance of the entire 
universe, and yet sad and gloomy! That is an 
inconsistency that can only be explained on th^ 



24 Perfect Happiness 

ground that they are in the wilderness state. 
They have not reached the land of Canaan — the 
land of corn and wine and oil — where the sun 
shines all the year round. They are on the lowest 
level of Christianity. They are living in a hovel 
down in a gloomy alley, instead of a fine mansion 
on a sunshiny avenue. I once lived down there 
myself. But years ago I left that gloomy alley, 
with its stifling smoke and poisonous malaria, 
and moved into a beautiful palace, facing the 
south. Here the sun shines bright three hundred 
and sixty-five days in every year. 

Again : why is it that there are so many fear- 
ful Christians, so many doubting Christians, so 
many peevish Christians, so many discontented 
Christians? Can God save us from fear, from 
doubt, from peevishness, from discontent? Can 
God put sunshine into our hearts, and into our 
faces, and into our homes? If he can not, then 
it can never be said of us, "Happy art thou, O j 

people saved by the Lord !" 

Now, that God can save us completely, and 
give us happiness such as the world never can 
give, is evident from the many positive promises 
found in God's Word. 



Perfect Happiness Promised 25 

Either God can save us from fear, from doubt, 
from discontent, from peevishness, and from 
every other sin, or the Bible is not true. If God 
can not make us perfectly happy, then the Bible 
is a tissue of falsehoods from lid to lid. I want to 
call the attention of the reader to some of the 
promises bearing on this subject. There are 
many of them, and they are "exceeding great 
and precious." 

Does God in his Word offer us a perfect sal- 
vation? Let us see. 

David says, 'With the Lord there is mercy, 
and with him is plenteous redemption." (Psalm 
cxxx, 7.) 

Abundant redemption — redemption for the 
whole world, and redemption from every sin. 
That is the meaning of this passage. 

God deals out his mercy, not stintingly, not 
as the stingy man doles out his charities to the 
poor. No, no ! there is no limit to God's redemp- 
tion ; there is no limit to his saving grace. It is 
as free and abundant as the air we breathe. And 
the air is forty miles deep, and it envelops the 
entire globe. We are literally immersed in it. 
So free and so abundant is God's mercy. 



26 Perfect Happiness 

In the very next verse David says, "God shall 
redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Not from 
one only, but from all. The big sins and the 
little ones. Actual sins, and the sin that was on 
us when we were born. 

Dr. Clarke says: "Every believer may take 
this promise to himself; God perfectly justifies 
and perfectly sanctifies all that come to him 
through the Son of his love." 

What makes you doubt, what makes you fear, 
what makes you fret, what makes you gloomy? 
Sin. Well, God promises to save from all sin. 
Put yourself where God can do this wonderful 
work; then doubt and fear and gloom — ^the re- 
sult of sin — will take wings and fly away. Then 
peevishness and all the fret will be taken out of 
you; and the "peace of God that passeth all un- 
derstanding" will take full possession of your 
soul. Then it may be said of you, as it was of 
Israel of old, "Happy art thou !" 

Take another promise found in Ezekiel xxxvi, 
25 : "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, 
and ye shall be clean ; from all your iilthiness and 
from all your idols will I cleanse you." That 
little word all covers everything, "From ^11 your 



Perfect Happiness Promised 27 

filthiness." The promise is, that every foul stain 
made by sin shall be purged away. 

The work of the Holy Spirit is here typified 
by water. The property of water is to cleanse, to 
whiten, to purify, to refresh ; render healthy and 
fruitful. 

How uncomfortable you feel when covered 
with the dust and sweat and filth of travel and 
toil. And then, when you doff your filthy rai- 
ment, wash the dust and sweat from your person, 
and robe yourself with the cleanest garments, 
how refreshed and invigorated you become! 
You feel like a new person. How uncomfortable 
we feel when the filth of sin clings to our souls ! 
And then, when the Holy Spirit comes into the 
heart in his cleansing and purifying power, we 
receive a health-giving vigor and strength that 
enables us to "mount up with wings as eagles, 
run and not be weary, walk and not faint." 

How beautifully does the prophet Isaiah de- 
scribe the highway of holiness, on which every 
believer may walk ! 

"And a highway shall be there, and a way, 
and it shall be called The way of holiness; the 
unclean shall not pass over it ; but it shall be for 



28 Perfect Happzjiess 

those; the wayfaring men, though fools, shall 
not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any 
ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not 
be found there. And the ransomed of the Lord 
shall return, and come to Zion with songs and 
everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall ob- 
tain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away." (Isaiah xxxv, 8, 9, 10.) 

This is a prediction of the blessings and glory 
of the gospel dispensation. We are living to-day 
amid the culminating glories referred to by the 
prophet, and yet it is possible for us to live amid 
these glories, and not be benefited at all by them. 
This way of holiness is called "a highway." It 
is above all other ways, superior to all other ways, 
happier than all other ways. It is a plain way. 
''The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not 
err therein." 

The conditions of holiness are so simple and 
plain that a little child may understand them; 
the untutored savage and the uneducated peas- 
ant, as well as the sage and the philosopher. 
What are the conditions? Unconditional dedi- 
cation of every faculty and power to God, and 
implicit faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 



Perfect Happiness Promised 29 

It is a safe way. ''No lion shall be there." 
While on this way you are perfectly safe. Not 
all the demons in hell, nor all the wicked men 
on earth can harm you. Underneath the holy 
are the everlasting arms, and around him cohorts 
of angels encamp. 

''The eyes of the Lyord run to and fro through- 
out the whole earth, to show himself strong in 
the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward 
him." (2 Chronicles xvi, 9.) 

God sees every perfect man. God is with 
every perfect man. God's omnipotent power is 
pledged to the defense of every perfect man. 

"If God be for us, who can be against us ?" It is 
a way of complete happiness. "Sorrow and sigh- 
ing shall flee away, with songs and everlasting 
joy upon their heads." Is it not a beautiful way? 
Satan has been telling men ever since he deceived 
Eve, that the way of holiness was a gloomy way, 
a melancholy way, an unpleasant way. And mill- 
ions in the past have believed his lies, and millions 
at the present believe his lies, and are being 
cheated out of perfect happiness here, and are in 
danger of being cheated out of eternal glory 
hereafter. 



30 Perfect Happiness 

Satan says holiness is a gloomy way — a very 
unpleasant way. God says ''his ways are ways 
of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace." 
"Joy and gladness are in the hearts, and songs 
and everlasting joy upon the heads " of those who 
are on this highway. Which will you believe, 
God or Satan? 

And right along on a parallel with these Old 
Testament promises come the promises of the 
New. 

Paul says : 'Wherefore he is able also to save 
them to the uttermost that come unto God by 
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession 
for them." (Hebrews vii, 25.) 

Here in this wonderful promise we have 
brought to our view : first, the everlasting priest- 
hood of Christ ; and, second, his ability and will- 
ingness to save all classes, and from all sin. 
"Where sin abounded, grace did much more 
abound." "He is able also to save to the utter- 
most." "Uttermost !" I like that word. I like 
it because there is nothing that can get beyond 
it. It covers everything. An uttermost salva- 
tion is a complete, an entire salvation. There 

is not a single evil that lurks within the heart 



Perfect Happiness Promised 31 

from which Christ can not completely save us. 
Let Christ purge us, and we shall be clean; let 
the adorable Redeemer wash us with his own 
most precious blood, and we shall be "whiter 
than snow." 

But when does Christ promise to do this great 
work? Not next month, not next year, nor de- 
ferring it until a dying hour. But now; at this 
very moment. "Now is the day of salvation." 
Mark, the verb is in the present tense. "He is 
able." Take that other promise found in the 
first Epistle of John. "The blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin." John does 
not say, the blood of Jesus Christ may cleanse, 
can cleanse, or will cleanse. The verb here is 
also in the present tense. "The blood of Jesus 
Christ cleansethr Now, while you read these 
words, you may look and live; now the great 
salvation may be yours. 

Paul prayed for the Church at Thessalonica, 
saying, "The very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly." (i Thessalonians v, 2-^?) 

The apostle highly compliments the members 
of this Church for their faith, love, noble deeds, 
and patient sufferings for Christ. He tells them 



32 Perfect Happiness 

that they "were ensamples to all that believe;" 
that ''in every place their faith to God-ward was 
spread abroad." 

And yet, with all their virtues and commend- 
able qualities, they were lacking, and Paul 
longed to see them, that he might, as he tells 
us, "perfect that which was lacking." And then 
he tells us w^hat their lack was. They were not 
established "unblamable in holiness." The lack 
was not holiness, but "unblamable holiness." 
They were sanctified, but not "wholly sancti- 
fied." AVhen a man is converted he is sanctified; 
but not entirely sanctified. Conversion is sanc- 
tification begun. Entire sanctification is sancti- 
fication completed; not completed in the sense 
that we can make no further advancement. In 
fact, the wholly sanctified are prepared to grow 
more rapidly than ever. To be wholly sancti- 
fied is to have all sin, actual and inborn, elimi- 
nated. And being free from all sin, the clogs 
in the wheels that are carrying us heavenward 
are all removed, and we are prepared to make 
more rapid strides in the divine life than ever. 

As the field of corn is prepared to grow more 
rapidly when every weed is removed, so the soul 



Perfect Happiness Promised 33 

is prepared for a most wonderful growth when 
all the weeds of sin are uprooted and cast out. 
What we need, in order to advance rapidly in the 
divine life, is entire sanctification. Place your- 
self where this mighty work may be wrought 
in you, and you will receive an impetus that will 
send you out on your heavenly way with a ve- 
locity such as you never dreamed of before. 

Paul prayed for the members of the Church 
at Thessalonica, that they might be wholly sanc- 
tified, and that prayer w^as for us as well as for 
them. Every prayer in the Scriptures is tanta- 
mount to a positive promise. Then, in the very 
next verse, Paul tells us that God "will do it." 
He will sanctify them wholly. 

In this wonderful prayer we have brought to 
our view : first, the extent of the marvelous work 
God proposes to do for us. "The very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly." That is, the whole 
being is to be sanctified so as to be "perfect, and 
entire, wanting nothing." The word wholly is 
not the same as all. It applies to individual 
Christians, and implies that their sanctification 
is to become entire — total. 

Then, having given the extent of the won- 



34 Perfect Happiness 

derful work that God promises to do for us, the 
apostle goes on and specifies, ''I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body." These are the 
three component parts of man's nature — the 
body, the soul, and the spirit. 

The body, the natural mortal body, with all 
its appetites and passions, may be entirely sancti- 
fied, so that these appetites and passions will be 
under perfect control. Entire sanctification does 
not destroy the lower passions and appetites. I 
believe, however, that in answer to prayer the 
appetite for tobacco and for liquor has been 
taken away. In fact, I have known personally 
a number of instances of this kind. But speaking 
on general principles, entire sanctification does 
not destroy the appetites and passions of the 
body, but it puts them under the most complete 
control, so that they will be used lawfully, as 
God has directed. 

The soul, the seat of the different afifections 
and passions, such as love, joy, hatred, envy, 
jealousy, pride, etc., may be entirely sanctified. 
And when this mighty work is wrought in the 
soul, then anger is taken away, pride is taken 
away, hatred is taken away, jealousy and envy 



Perfect Happiness Promised 35 

are taken away, and love, pure and unsullied, 
reigns supreme. And when love reigns, when 
love controls, when love guides in every thought 
and word and act; when every feeling contrary 
to pure love is cast out, then we breathe a heav- 
enly atmosphere. Then, indeed, are we, by Di- 
vine power, lifted above the world ; and standing 
on this lofty mountain summit the heavenly 
breezes strike us, and thrills of holy joy go 
through and through the soul. 

The spirit, the immortal principle, that which 
will never die; that which thinks and reasons 
and judges, — it, too, may be entirely sanctified. 
And if the immortal principle — that which thinks 
and reasons and judges — is entirely sanctified, 
then our thoughts will be pure, our words will 
be pure; then there will be ''neither filthiness, 
nor fooHsh talking, nor jesting." Vile words 
will be shunned and buffoonery abhorred. 
'Witty sayings and mountebank repartees" are 
not indulged in by the wholly sanctified. All 
such things are an abomination to him, as they 
are to the pure Redeemer whom he serves. The 
acts also will be pure. 

The whole spirit, the whole soul, the whole 



36 Perfect Happiness 

body, may be entirely sanctified. This is the. 
mighty work that God in this passage of Scrip- 
ture promises to do for every one of his obedient 
and trusting children. 

And then, when this wondrous work is ac- 
complished in us, God promises to keep us in this 
wholly sanctified state, not only a week, or a 
month, or a year, but "unto the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

Does not this promise annihilate forever the 
idea that this work can not be done until death? 
Here, in this wonderful prayer, the great privi- 
leges of every believer are set before us in a light 
as clear as the noonday sun. 

It is not necessary for me, perhaps, to quote 
another promise, although there are many more 
that I might quote, to prove beyond the shadow 
of a doubt that God is willing and able to save 
every one to the uttermost, and give to every one 
now the priceless boon of perfect happiness. 

The question at once arises, with all these 
broad and sweeping promises before us, why is 
it that a larger number are not wholly sanctified? 
Why is it that all do not at once go over into this 
beautiful land, where the birds sing and the 



Perfect Happiness Promised 



37 



flowers bloom and the delicious fruits grow; 
where the sun in his splendor shines three hun- 
dred and sixty-five days in every year? 

This is a reasonable question, and we do not 
w^onder that it is asked. In answering this ques- 
tion, we may ask another: Why was it that the 
Israelites hungered and thirsted, and met with 
defeat after defeat and disaster after disaster, and 
for forty years wandered in the wilderness? 
They could have entered and possessed Canaan 
nearly forty years before they did, if they would. 
Why did they not do it? Why did they suffer 
all these forty years if it could have been pre- 
vented? The reason is simple. The two things 
that kept them out of Canaan for forty years 
were, fear and unbelief. 

When they reached Kadesh-Barnea, the bor- 
der of the promised land, Moses, in obedience 
to God's command, sent twelve men, heads of 
the twelve tribes, "to spy out the land." These 
spies ''searched the land" from the extreme south 
to the extreme north. They were gone forty 
days. On their return they passed through the 
valley of Eshcol. Here they cut down a large 
cluster of grapes, and Caleb and Joshua bore 



38 Perfect Happiness 

this cluster of grapes upon their shoulders into 
the camp of Israel. They also took with them 
pomegranates and figs, that the Israelites might 
have a sample of the delicious fruits that grew 
in the beautiful land. 

Ten of these spies were cowards, and unbe- 
lieving. Two of them had the courage of a lion, 
and a faith that never wavered. There was a 
majority report and a minority report. 

Ten of the spies said: "We have passed 
through the land whither thou sentest us. We 
found it to be a land flowing with milk and 
honey; a land of corn and wine and oil; a land 
where fruits the most delicious and in the great- 
est abundance grow. Nevertheless, the people 
be strong that dwell there. We met the sons 
of Anak, and in comparison with them we are 
but as grasshoppers. The cities are walled up 
to heaven. The Amalekites dwell in the land 
of the south, the Hittites and the Jebusites and 
the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the 
Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of 
Jordan. It will be an impossibility for us to dis- 
lodge the enemy, and take possession of the 
country." And when this report was made there 



Perfect Happiness Promised 39 



was a murmur, and a sad wail went up from 
Israel's thousands. The whole camp was in 
commotion. Such an excitement they had never 
before witnessed. 

But Caleb arose and "stilled the people." He 
said : "We have seen the land ; we have traversed 
the whole of the country; it is a beautiful land, 
a land flowing with milk and honey, a very desir- 
able land. We know that there are giants there. 
We have met them. It is true, their cities are 
strongly fortified. . We have looked upon their 
towering walls; we have marked well their bul- 
warks; we have surveyed their frowning battle- 
ments and massive fortifications. But we are 
well able to go up at once and possess the land. 
The God of our fathers is with us, and he will 
give us the victory." 

Caleb and Joshua were the only two that en- 
tered the land. Their cowardly comrades laid 
their carcases in the wilderness. 

To-day, as thirty-three hundred years ago, 
the giants meet us. Unbelief and cowardice 
keep thousands from entering at once the Ca- 
naan of perfect love. Some are fearful and some 
are unbelieving. Some say: "Sin can not be 



40 Perfect Happiness 

destroyed in this life ; it must always dwell within 
us. The Anakim can not be conquered. We are 
but as grasshoppers before the Anakim." 

Satan has been telling men this all along the 
ages, and all along the ages men have been be- 
lieving him, and hence have been miserable in- 
stead of being perfectly happy. God says, "For 
this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that 
he might destroy the works of the devil." (i 
John iii, 8.) 

All sin is the work of the devil. Christ came 
to destroy the works of the devil — all sin. 
Which will we believe, God or Satan? One or 
the other we must believe. 

A Christian lady once said to the writer : "For 
many years I believed that perfect love was not 
for me. I thought this great blessing was only 
for ministers, and a few highly-favored ones. 
I did not dare think for a moment that I could 
ever attain to it. I felt that I was not one of the 
highly-favored few." This idea had been in- 
stilled into her mind by erroneous teachings. 
So she went on for years bearing the heavy load 
of sin, all the while anxious to get rid of it, but 
not daring to believe it possible. She began 



Perfect Happiness Promised 41 

earnestly to pray, and to search diligently the 
Scriptures. She read in the Word, "God is no 
respecter of persons." ''The Son of God was 
manifested that he might destroy the works of 
the devil." She gave her doubts and fears to the 
wind, believed, and entered into perfect rest. 

A word — even a hint — that sin can not be 
instantaneously eradicated from the heart by the 
power of God, may cause some poor soul to 
carry an unnecessary burden all through life. 
The design of God in giving to the world the 
Bible and an instituted ministry was to lift loads 
from off human hearts. If we teach a doctrine 
not clearly in accord with God's Word, we may 
impose burdens and not remove them. The de- 
sign of this little book under God is to lift the 
burden of sin from ofif the heart of every one 
who may chance to read its pages. Perfect free- 
dom from all sin is the heritage of every believer. 

The testimony of the perfectly saved and the 
teachings of God's Word are in perfect harmony. 
Many refuse to believe God and the testimonies 
of the entirely sanctified, and hence remain in 
the wilderness state. Unbelief keeps thousands 
from the Beulah land. 



42 Perfect Happiness 

Cowardice keeps many from seeking heart 
purity. 

Satan will take a censorious, inconsistent pro- 
fessor of entire sanctification, and hold that per- 
son up to the gaze of the world and the Church, 
until men in and out of the Church will be fright- 
ened almost out of their wits at such a specimen 
of Christianity. And if we are not very watch- 
ful, the enemy will keep that inconsistent, sancti- 
monious person before us until we become as 
cowardly on the subject of holiness as the ten 
spies were of the giants in Canaan. 

I have seen persons who professed entire 
sanctification that created in me a qualm every 
time I looked at them. And I have seen persons 
who professed justification only, that made me 
just as sick. But neither shook my faith one 
particle, either in the doctrine of holiness or of 
pardon. My faith is not founded on the actions 
of any man or woman, but on the immutable 
Word of God. 

Cowardice is one of Satan's sentinels, placed 
at the gateway to keep Christians from entering 
the Canaan of perfect love. 

I remember when I was seeking holiness one 



Perfect Happiness Pro^nised 



43 



of the tall sons of Anak stared me in the face. 
He put the fearful question to me, and it came 
with wondrous force and power: ''Are you will- 
ing the people shall point the finger of scorn 
at you, and say, He is one of the sanctified ones; 
he thinks he is holier than we?" That was a 
searching question. I felt that I could endure 
anything but that. And I confess I trembled 
when I looked into the brazen face of my enemy. 
I knew very well that my enemy would conquer 
me, or I must, by the grace of God, conquer 
him ; that it would be to me a Waterloo defeat 
or a Richmond victory. 

Silently I prayed. I looked to the Strong for 
help. Then I was enabled to say, "Yes, I am 
willing to take the odium, if God will only give 
me this great salvation." In an instant the 
giant fled, and I was master of the situation. 

No sooner was this enemy disposed of than 
another met me, and then another, and another, 
until the last one was, by the mighty power of 
God, conquered. Then there came into my soul 
a sweet peace. "The peace of God that passeth 
all understanding" took possession of my heart. 
That peace has been flowing ever since. Only 



44 



Perfect Happiness 



occasionally has the flow been interrupted. It 
was a rill at first ; it is a mighty river now. After 
a while it will be an ocean, without a bottom or 
a shore, and in it I shall bathe forever. 

God promised the Israelites that they should 
have rest from all their enemies round about. 
That promise was fulfilled to the very letter. 
"All came to pass." Just as certainly as God ful- 
filled all his promises to his ancient Israel, so 
surely will he fulfill all his promises to his chil- 
dren to-day. Not one promise made to his trust- 
ing children will ever fail while the sun or the 
moon endures. 

Why were the Israelites a happy people? Be- 
cause they were a saved people. "Saved by the 
Lord." Why are men now happy? Not because 
they are rich ; not because they dwell in a palace ; 
not because the honors of the world are lavished 
upon them; not because of their surroundings; 
not because of any or all these things combined ; 
but, if happy, it is because they are saved — saved 
from sin. Salvation is the basis of all true happi- 
ness — the panacea for the world's sorrow, the 
recipe for universal joy. 

Some Christians have little happiness because 



Perfect Happiness Promised 45 

they have little salvation. They have spiritual 
life; but they do not have the more abundant life 
Christ came to give to all. So much salvation, 
so much happiness; no more, no less. If you 
would have perfect happiness, you must have 
perfect salvation — salvation from actual and in- 
born sin. And this, as we have shown, is abun- 
dantly promised. 

An interrogative is generally stronger and 
more emphatic than an affirmative declaration. 
Hence the question, ''Who is like unto thee, O 
people saved by the Lord?" is stronger than if 
God had said, "There is none like thee." None 
so happy, none so joyful, none so restful, none 
so free from anxious care and harassing doubt. 

Peter said of all such: "Whom having not 
seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him 
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory." (i Peter i, 8.) "Believ- 
ing!" Believing what? Believing that we are 
redeemed; believing that we are now, this very 
moment, saved from all sin; believing, not that 
we have hold of God, but that God has hold of 
us, and is leading us ; believing that all things — 
our reverses, our trials, our heartaches, our 



46 Perfect Happiness 

heartburnings, our sorrows; sorrows that are 
too deep for utterance — all these things are 
working under the unerring hand of Divine 
Providence for our good. Believing all these 
things — as certain of them as we are of our own 
existence — is it any wonder that we should "re- 
joice with joy unspeakable and full of glory?" 
Yes, heaven is really begun on earth. "Salva- 
tion, not in rills, but in cataracts rolls." 

" The men of grace have found 
Glory begun below ; 
Celestial fruit on earthly ground 
From faith and hope may grow. 

Then let our songs abound, 

And every tear be dry ; 
We 're marching through Immanuel's ground, 

To fairer worlds on high." 

We have plucked some of the rich clusters 
of grapes that grow in the Eshcol Valley; we 
have eaten the luscious fruits, and are satisfied; 
we are living in a land of corn and wine and oil, 
where no clouds ever obscure the sun. 

" Is not this the land of Beulah, 
Blessed, blessed land of light 
Where the flowers bloom forever, 
And the sun is always bright?" 

This perfect happiness is for all. 



Perfect Happiness Promised 47 

During a period of forty years in the ministry, 
I have come within touch of hundreds, nay, 
thousands, who were not satisfied with their 
rehgious experience. I have met many, O so 
many ! who were hungry for that which perfectly 
satisfies. 

There are toiling fathers who want this per- 
fect rest of soul; there are careworn mothers 
who want it ; there are brokenhearted wives who 
need it ; there are many young men and women 
who are anxious to know about it. All may 
have it. Just how to get it will be shown fur- 
ther on. 



i 



PART II 



Perfedl Happiness Condi- 
tioned 



49 



CHAPTER II 

Happiness Does Not Come by Chance 

Happiness does not come by chance. It is 
the result of meeting certain conditions. In fact, 
nothing in this or any other world happens by 
chance. In the material, the intellectual, and 
the spiritual world effects are the result of causes. 

Professor Henry Drummond says: "God is a 
God of order. The w^orld, even the religious 
world, is governed by law. Happiness is gov- 
erned by law. The Christian experiences are 
governed by law. Men forgetting this, expect 
rest, joy, peace, faith, to drop into their souls 
from the air, like rain or snow." Is it not true 
that man}^, many think just that way? And 
because these experiences do not come into their 
souls without any effort on their part whatever, 
they complain against Divine Providence. 
What stupendous folly! 

In every realm effects are the result of causes. 

Meet certain conditions, and certain results 

follow. 

If the husbandman would have a good crop, 

51 



52 Perfect Happiness 

certain conditions must be met. He must plow, 
and sow, and plant, and till the soil. If a young 
man would become a scholar, a good lawyer, 
a good doctor, a successful merchant, an expert 
mechanic — if he would become skilled, in any 
of the various departments of this life, certain 
conditions must be met. 

Meet certain conditions, and you will be, all 
through life, a sober man. Sobriety is the result 
of total abstinence. Fail to meet the conditions, 
give loose rein to your appetites, and you will 
just as certainly become a drunkard, as a mus- 
ket-ball, piercing the heart, will produce death. 

It must be evident, therefore, to all, that a 
good doctor, a good lawyer, a successful farmer, 
a skilled mechanic, does not come by chance. 
So men are not converted by chance, men are 
not sanctified by chance, meii do not gain 
heaven by chance. All these are the result of 
meeting certain conditions. Heart purity brings 
perfect happiness. In order to attain to this 
high, holy, and happy state, where our peace 
shall become as a river, certain conditions must 
be met. What these conditions are will be 
shown in the following chapters. 



CHAPTER III 

Consecration 

In this chapter I desire to call the attention 
of the reader to one of the conditions necessary 
to perfect happiness ; namely, consecration. 

Paul, in writing to the Romans, says: *'I be- 
seech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacri- 
fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your 
reasonable service." (Romans xii, i.) 

Paul was intensely interested in the salvation 
of men. He had a burning desire to see souls 
converted. He had, if possible, a still greater 
desire to see believers go up to the highest plane 
of religious experience. He wrote more to 
Christians than to any other class. All his epis- 
tles were written to Church members. He knew 
their dangers and responsibilities; hence his 
great concern for their welfare. His language 
is exceedingly nervous. In fact, it is the most 
intense and vehement. ^'I beseech you." That 
is to say, "I pray you, I entreat you, I beg of 

you, present your bodies a living sacrifice." 

53 



54 Perfect Happiness 

Paul here refers to the burnt sacrifice of the 
Jews. The burnt sacrifice of the bullock was 
a sin-offering. The burnt sacrifice of the ram 
was a self-dedicatory sacrifice, in which the Jew 
consecrated himself wholly to God. 

In the consecration of the priests, the animal 
offered was a ram, and Moses calls this sacrifice, 
''The ram of consecration." Paul refers to this 
sacrifice of consecration when he says, "Present 
your bodies a living sacrifice." The animal of- 
fered as a burnt-offering was to be without blem- 
ish, and perfect in all its parts. If one leg were 
gone, or one eye out, or a tip of the ear cut off, 
it was not acceptable. It must be a whole burnt- 
offering. 

So we must give ourselves in the spirit of 
sacrifice, to be as wholly the Lord's, as the whole 
burnt-offering was under the old dispensation, 
no part being devoted to any other use. 

This sacrifice of consecration is described in 
the twenty-ninth chapter of Exodus. 

God said to Moses : "Thou shalt kill the ram, 
and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of 
the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the 
right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 55 

their right hand, and upon the great toe of their 
right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar 
round about." 

The meaning of this novel passage of Scrip- 
ture is very significant. 

The ear represents the head ; the thumb of the 
right hand, the hands; and the great toe of the 
right foot, the feet. 

The -putting the blood of the sacrifice on the 
tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, 
and the great toe of the right foot, was doubt- 
less intended to signify that they should dedicate 
all their faculties and powers to the service of 
God; their ears to the hearing and study of his 
law, their hands to diligence in the sacred min- 
istry and to all acts of obedience, and their feet 
to walking in all the way of God's precepts. 

When Aaron and his sons were thus wholly 
consecrated to God, then God wholly sanctified 
them; i. e., perfectly cleansed them from all sin, 
as we are informed in the forty-fourth verse. "I 
will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation 
and the altar; I will sanctify also both Aaron 
and his sons to minister to me in the priest's 
office." 



56 Perfect Happiness 

When this sacrifice of consecration was made 
by Moses and the priests, then God sanctified 
the tabernacle and the altar and the priests, and 
then, and not till then, were the priests pre- 
pared to enter upon their priestly offices. . 

The question has come to me with wonder- 
ful power. If God required of the priests under 
the Mosaic dispensation the consecration of 
every faculty and power of soul, body, and spirit, 
in order that he might sanctify them wholly be- 
fore they were prepared for their official work 
as priests, does he require any less of his min- 
isters to-day? A sacred awe steals over my 
whole frame every time I enter the pulpit; for I 
remember that the temple is holy, and the altar 
is holy, and God requires that the minister at the 
altar shall also be holy. The solemn command 
of Him from whom I have received my com- 
mission rings in my ears, "Be ye clean that bear 
the vessels of the Lord." 

The Israelites were led into the land of Ca- 
naan by one who had been there himself. The 
mantle of Moses fell on Joshua. Moses died on 
Nebo, in full view of the promised land. But 
Joshua led Israel into Canaan. Joshua knew all 



Perfect Happiitess Conditioned 57 

about Canaan. He had been there, and having 
surveyed the whole country, he was well ac- 
quainted with it. He had seen the giants, the 
walled cities, the difficulties they would have to 
meet and encounter. Then, he had eaten its 
luscious fruits, walked up and down the valleys 
of its beautiful streams, over its inviting plains, 
and along its grand mountain sides. He had 
seen the corn and the wine and the oil, and had 
breathed the balmy atmosphere of its salubrious 
clime. No one was better qualified to lead the 
people over than Joshua. He followed God 
fully, and amid the mightiest tides of opposition 
he led the people on to victory. 

If we, as ministers, would lead our flocks over 
into the delightful land of perfect love, we must 
first go over ourselves. We can not lead the 
people up to a plane of religious experience 
above the one on which we ourselves are 
standing. 

As Joshua knew from experience all about 
Canaan, so we must know from experience that 
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, 
if we would lead the people into this blessed 
state. 



58 Perfect Happiness 

The qualification needed is not a literary one, 
but spiritual. 

Our scholastic attainments may be very high. 
They ought to be. We ought to be scholars of 
the highest type. I do not disparage scholar- 
ship. But we may have a perfect knowledge of 
the schools ; we may be well versed in systematic 
theology; we may understand theoretically 
Watson, Wesley, Clarke, Fletcher, Pope, and all 
our standard authors, and yet know but little 
touching entire sanctification. 

What does the sinner know about conver- 
sion? Nothing at all. The only way possible 
for him to understand it i» to get the experience. 

To a celebrated scientist Bishop Haven once 
said: "Well, professor, we are about even; I 
know as little about science as you do about re^ 
ligion." The witty words of the good bishop 
are perfectly philosophical. Religion is not in 
the intellectual realm, but in the spiritual. The 
spiritual realm is away above and beyond the 
intellectual; and the way into this realm is not 
by the head but by the heart, as Paul tells us. 
''The natural man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God ; for they are fooHshness unto him ; 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 59 

neither can he know them, because they are spir- 
itually discerned." (i Corinthians ii, 14.) 

Entire sanctification is in this spiritual realm, 
but farther on and higher up; and if we would 
understand it fully the Holy Ghost must teach 
us. Spiritual things, from the lowest level up 
to the highest plane, are discerned spiritually. 

When our repentance and faith are genuine, 
then the Holy Ghost bears witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God. 

When, as believers, our consecration and 
faith are genuine, then the Holy Spirit bears 
witness with our spirit that the work of entire 
sanctification is done in us. 

The lesson of pardon is taught by the Holy 
Ghost. The lesson of entire sanctification is also 
taught by the Holy Ghost. 

If we, therefore, would lead the people over 
into the Canaan of perfect love, we must, like 
Joshua, first go over ourselves, and from per- 
sonal experience become acquainted with the 
beautiful land. 

Mr. Whitefield, in speaking of his ordinajtion, 
says: "I call heaven and earth to witness that 
when the bishop laid his hands upon my head 



6o Perfect Happiness 

I gave myself up to be a martyr for Him who 
hung upon the cross for me. I have thrown my- 
self blindfold, and, I trust, without reserve, 
into his almighty hands." From that time on 
George Whitefield became a flaming evangelist 
for God. Wherever he spoke the people were 
moved by the mysterious power that attended 
his words. 

Let us give ourselves up to be martyrs for 
the Lord Jesus ; then wherever we go the power 
of God will attend us ! 

Under the Gospel dispensation ever}?- Chris- 
tian is a priest. Peter says of all Christians, "Ye 
are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." 
The Israelites of old were a chosen people, and 
God said of them, "Ye shall be to me a kingdom 
of priests." (Exodus xix, 6.) 

God's Church to-day is a kingdom of priests. 
E^ry man, woman, and child in God's Church 
is a priest, and can go into the immediate pres- 
ence of God, hold communion, ask and receive, 
without the intervention of any third party. The 
veil of the temple was rent in twain, and all now 
may enter the holy of holies. As all Christians 
are priests, God requires of all an unconditional 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 6i 

dedication of every faculty and power to his 
service. 

I. Consecration is man's work; sanctification 
is God's work. Some confound consecration 
with sanctification. Consecration is one thing, 
sanctification is another. These two are distinct. 

The term sanctify has two meanings. First, 
it means to cleanse, to purify, to make clean; 
and in this sense it is used by Paul when he prays 
for the Church at Thessalonica, saying, "The 
very God of peace sanctify you wholly." 
(i Thessalonians v, 23.) Second, it means to 
consecrate, to set apart for a special purpose. 

God said to his ancient people, ''Sanctify 
yourselves, and be ye holy." In the very next 
verse he says, "I am the Lord which sanctify 
you." (Exodus XX, 7, 8.) 

In the first sentence the term sanctify means 
to consecrate, because it refers to man's work; 
in the second sentence the term sanctify means 
to purify, because it refers to God's work. "You 
consecrate yourselves wholly to me, and I will 
cleanse and purify you from all sin." 

God said to Moses, "Sanctify unto me all the 
first-born." (Exodus xiii, 2.) 



63 Perfect Happiness 

In the twelfth verse Moses explains the mean- 
ing of the second, ''Thou shalt set apart unto the 
Lord every firstling." 

2. We find, in reading the Bible, that the 
exhortations to consecration are given to Chris- 
tians, and not to the unconverted. In fact, sin- 
ners are nowhere commanded to consecrate 
themselves to God. Sinners are commanded to 
repent and surrender. Backsliders are com- 
manded to ''repent and do the first works." 

All the commands to be holy, both in the 
Old and New Testaments, are made to the right- 
eous. Sinners are commanded to repent, be- 
lievers are commanded to be holy. 

So all the commands to consecration are 
made to believers. Sinners are commanded to 
repent; believers are commanded to dedicate 
themselves wholly to God. 

Whenever a sinner repents, surrenders, and 
believes, then he is pardoned. Whenever a be- 
liever makes an unconditional dedication of all 
to God and believes, then he is wholly sanctified. 

3. The Bible demands of the Christian a liv- 
ing sacriiice. "Present your bodies a living sac- 
rifice." 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 63 

The sinner can not make this sacrifice, be- 
cause he does not have it to make. He can not 
give what he does not possess. He is dead in 
trespasses and sin; all his faculties and powers 
are dead. 

But when he goes to God, dead in trespasses 
and in sin, repents, surrenders, and believes, 
then he is pardoned and made alive. And when 
this wonderful work of transformation is 
wrought in him, and he is made alive unto God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord, then he is to 
dedicate these living faculties and powers for- 
ever to God ; then, and not till then, can he make 
a living sacrifice, 

I know that in common Christian parlance, 
by both preachers and laymen, sinners are ex- 
horted to consecrate themselves to God. But 
consecration in the awakened sinner means self- 
surrender to God. In the believer seeking holi- 
ness it means self-dedication to God; hence the 
"living sacrifice" that every believer, in the 
twelfth chapter of Romans, is called upon to 
make, is called by the learned the "self-dedica- 
tory sacrifice." 

4. I have never known of a person that was 



64 Perfect Happiness 

converted and wholly sanctified at the same 
time. Mr. Wesley says he never knew of a per- 
son that was. But he does not deny the possi- 
bility of such an experience. 

'*But," says one, "is not God able to convert 
and wholly sanctify the soul at the same time?" 
Most assuredly he is. But it is not a question of 
God's ability at all, but of our faith. 

We are justified by faith. We are also sancti- 
fied by faith. We get just what we believe for. 
"What things soever ye desire when ye pray, 
believe that ve receive them, and ve shall have 
them." (Mark xi, 24.) Now, if the penitent 
at the altar seeking pardon, can believe for par- 
don and entire sanctification at the same mo- 
ment, I believe he can have both at the same 
moment. But I have never known an instance 
of that kind. 

My observation has been that the best Chris- 
tians are the ones who usually seek entire sancti- 
fication. Having tasted the sweets of pardon, 
they soon begin to long for all God has for his 
children here on earth. 

A most devoted Christian lady, living in Lin- 
coln^ Nebraska, was deeply convicted of the need 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 65 

of heart purity. She longed for holiness, but 
hesitated a long time before making the needed 
consecration. She was afraid God would require 
of her that which she could not possibly perform. 
She said : "God may require me to go and kneel 
down right in the street, and pray for some un- 
godly man. I can't do that." And so she hesi- 
tated. God never requires any one to do that 
which is not in accord with common sense ; and 
if you are impressed that you ought to do some 
outlandish thing, you may be assured that that 
impression is from the devil, and not from God. 

Well, this lady hesitated a long time before 
she made her consecration, lest in the future she 
would be called to do some dreadful thing. 
Finally, however, she made the required dedi- 
cation, placed all on the altar, believed, and was 
wonderfully saved. 

From that day till the present she has been 
one of the most successful workers for God in 
the State. But God has never called her to do 
a thing that was not in accord with sound reason 
and good common sense. 

A boy, only about fifteen years old, living 
at Friend, Nebraska, was clearly converted, and 



66 Perfect Happiness 



in three days afterwards was wholly sanctified. 
A short time after this occurred, I held a quar- 
terly-meeting at Friend, and while there I met 
the boy, and had a private conversation with 
him. I questioned him very closely touching his 
sanctification. Among other questions I asked 
him the following, "What was the great diffi- 
culty in your way when you were seeking holi- 
ness?" "Well," said he, "I always had a desire 
to be a rich man. I had determined to be a 
millionaire. After I was converted I still had 
that desire, and I did not think there was any 
harm in it. But when I began to seek holiness 
that desire rose right up before me, and greatly 
troubled me. And the more I prayed, the more 
that desire to be rich troubled me. But when I 
told the Lord that if he did not want me to be a 
rich man, I would give up all desire to be rich, 
and that I would do just what he wanted me to 
do as long as I lived, then he sanctified me." 
The story was told with an artless simplicity 
that made a wonderful impression on my heart. 
I found that that boy's consecration, three days 
after conversion, was made as intelligently as 
mine was nineteen years after I was converted.- 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 



67 



5. Our consecration must be entire — com- 
plete ; then the cleansing will be complete. The 
whole body, the whole soul, the whole spirit — 
all there is of us for time and eternity — must be 
forever dedicated to God ; then God will sanctify 
the whole body, the whole soul, and the whole 
spirit. 

What does God say? "You consecrate your- 
self wholly to me, and I will sanctify you 
wholly." ''Consecration," says William Mc- 
Donald, ''imphes three things, being, doing, and 
suffering. We must be willing to be, to do, 
and to suffer all that God requires. This em- 
braces reputation, friends, property, and time. 
It covers body, mind, and soul. These are to be 
used when, where, and as God requires." This 
consecration is to be made for all coming time 
without any reserve w^hatever. 

There is a beautiful promise in Hosea iii, 3, 
*'Thou shalt be for me and not for another; so 
will I be for thee." What wonderful words are 
these ! You all for Christ, and Christ all for vou. 
What a blessed exchange ! In this exchange the 
Christian gets the best bargain. He gives little, 
and gets much. He gives that which is finite. 



68 Perfect Happiness 

and gets the infinite. He gives weakness, and 
gets power; gives a troubled heart, and gets 
"the peace of God which passeth all understand- 
ing." How inspiring the words of the Master! 
"I am with you ; I am for you ; I will never leave 
you. The mountains shall depart and the hills 
be removed; but my kindness shall never de- 
part from thee." 

Ralph Wells, the great Sunday-school man, 
had on his blackboard before his mission school 
the words, "See that Jesus gets it all." 

A little girl, brought into the mission school 
fromi a low dance-house, lay dying. Her parents 
were very poor. Left alone with her grand- 
mother, she said, "Granny, will you bring me 
my purse?" — a gift from the school at last 
Christmas. The little purse was brought to her, 
when, counting out therefrom forty-eight cents, 
she said : "Granny, this is my money that I have 
saved for Jesus to give to the mission school ; 
dear Granny, see that Jesus gets it all." 

Dear brother, dear sister, "see that Jesus gets 
it all" — all there is of you for time and eternity. 

Does Jesus require all? Some one may be 
ready to say, "That seems hard." Jennie, the 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 69 

Scotch girl, silenced her father's objections to 
her marriage by one wise and judicious sentence. 
''Jennie," said the father, ''it is a very solemn 
thing to get married." "I know it," replied the 
sensible damsel; "but it is a great deal more so 
not to." 

It may be a solemn thing, a very hard thing, 
to make this consecration. It will be a thousand 
times harder, and more solemn not to do so. 

A sister said to her pastor, "I ought to con- 
secrate myself wholly to God; but I can't." Her 
pastor replied, "Do n't say you can't ; but you 
won't." "Yes," she rephed, "that is it; but I 
mean it is so hard." "True," said her pastor; 
"but it is harder not to do it. Do it, and God 
will dwell in your heart, bless your home, and 
lead your children to salvation; but do it not, 
darkness will come to your soul, your children 
will grow up irreligious, and possibly you your- 
self will lie down and die without the hope of 
heaven." She refused to make the consecra- 
tion, and her pastor's words proved prophetic. 
All the apprehended evils suggested by her pas- 
tor. Dr. Keen, came, and more; "and suddenly 
one day she dropped out of life." 



70 Perfect Happiness 

How much harder it proved to her not to 
consecrate herself to God, than to have done so ! 
So it will be with every one. 

Make the complete consecration; make it 
without any mental reservation or secret evasion 
w^hatsoever; make it calmly and deliberately; 
make it for all time and for all eternity, and then 
you can believe in Jesus as your present Sancti- 
fier as easily as you breathe ; then the indubitable 
evidence will come to your heart that you are 
fully saved, and joy unspeakable will flood your 
whole soul. 

No greater happiness ever thrilled an im- 
mortal soul than that which thrills the soul that 
can say, "I am eternally the L^ord's, and the 
IvOrd is eternally mine." 

*lf there be bliss ; it is this, it is this," 



CHAPTER IV 

Motives to Consecration 

I THINK it well just at this point to raise a 
note of warning. There is danger. The danger 
is in having an eye alone on our own happiness. 
We should not make this consecration simply to 
be happy. That would be selfish. Selfishness is 
a soil in which happiness never grows. To make 
it with this end in view, would be to defeat the 
very object aimed at in our selfishness. 

I would not say that happiness is not one of 
the motives to a devoted life. It is, in fact, one 
of the motives presented in the Scriptures to 
»induce us to be holy. 

Isaiah, in speaking of the happiness of those 
on the high way of holiness, says, "They shall 
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh- 
ing shall flee away." "With songs and everlast- 
ing joy on their heads." 

Certainly David had in view his own happi- 
ness when he prayed. "Restore unto me the joy 
of thy salvation." Christ meant us to under- 
stand that religion was a very desirable thing to 

71 



72 Perfect Happiness 

have, when he said, "My yoke is easy, and my 
burden is light." 

All through the Scriptures the joy of religion 
is set before us as an inducement to a wholly 
consecrated life. 

While this is true, there are other and higher 
motives. In making this consecration, self 
should drop out of sight. While it is true that 
perfect happiness comes as a result of perfect 
consecration, the motive prompting us in mak- 
ing this consecration should rise infinitely above 
a simple desire to be happy. 

There are many pure motives to entire con- 
secration — motives so great and powerful that 
it seems strange that all do not at once yield to 
them. 

These motives appeal to all the finer sensi- 
bilities of our natures; they appeal to all that is 
noble, and manly, and just, and pure. 

I. We ought to consecrate ourselves forever 
to God, because he commands it. "Consecrate 
yourselves, and be ye holy." The simple fact 
that God commands it, is reason sufhcient. 
When God commands, we should obey without 
one moment's hesitation. 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 73 

2. Another motive to consecration is the 
glory of God. 

Paul says, ''Glorify God in your body and 
in your spirit, which are God's." (i Corinthians 
vi, 20.) And in the eleventh chapter and thirty- 
first verse of the same epistle, he says, "Whether 
therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
do all to the glory of God." How can we best 
glorify God? Let Christ answer this question: 
''Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear 
much fruit." (John xv, 8.) God is honored by 
having fruit-bearing children. 

David wanted heart purity that he might be 
a soul-winner, and thereby glorify God. "Create 
in me a clean heart, O God." . . . "Then 
will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners 
shall be converted unto thee." 

The most successful soul-winners that have 
ever graced the world have been the men and 
the women that have been wholly consecrated 
to God. 

3. We ought to consecrate ourselves wholly 
to God, because the demand to do so is a reason- 
able demand. 

God asks nothing of any one that is not in 



74 Perfect Happiness 

accord with sound reason. Paul says this de- 
mand of God is "your reasonable service." 

God demands the devotement to him of our 
bodies, our souls, our time, our talents, our 
means, our families, our all. And this is noth- 
ing more than our reasonable service. 

God has a just claim upon us, because we 
belong to him by the right of creation. It is he 
that hath made us, and not we ourselves. He 
created us intelligent, moral, and social beings. 
Our bodies with their powers, our minds with 
their faculties, our souls with their affections, 
all, by right, belong to God. 

God has a just claim upon us, because we. be- 
long to him by the right of purchase. "Ye are 
not your own, for ye are bought with a price." 
(i Corinthians vi, 19.) 

We ought to consecrate ourselves wholly to 
God, because he has given us life. What a glori- 
ous thing it is to live ! Did you ever take into 
serious consideration that great gift — life? Who 
would not rather be, than not to be? 

Well, God has given us life, and health, and 
friends, and loved ones, and homes, and country. 
But above and beyond all these there is a higher 



i 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 75 

claim; it is a claim upon us arising from God's 
love seen in redemption. "Herein is love, not 
that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent 
his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 
(i John iv, 10.) 

Has God given us life with all its blessings? 
Has he redeemed us by the blood of his Son? 
Has he preserved us amid all the dangers of the 
past? Then, is it not the most reasonable of all 
things to consecrate our all to him? 

Consecration is not the yielding of some- 
thing to God that did not previously belong to 
him. We must remember that every faculty of 
body, soul, and spirit already belongs to God, by 
the right of creation, redemption, and preserva- 
tion. And when we consecrate all to God, ''it is 
simply taking hands off from God's property, 
and acknowledging his right to his own." 

"Sailors, as a rule, run up their colors on 
lines easily worked, so that they may be taken 
down at pleasure. We have, however, heard 
of bold seamen, who in times of danger have 
nailed their sovereign's colors to the masthead, 
and cut away the lines. Some enemy might 
call on them to surrender and to pull down that 



76 Perfect Happiness 

flag, but such a humiliation could then never 
occur. The flag might be riddled with shot, 
the mast might be shot away, but so long as 
that mast stood in its place, the flag would tell 
to whom that vessel belonged." 

I would have every Christian run up to the 
masthead of life a streamer, and on that streamer 
I would have written in blazing characters these 
words, "All for Jesus." 

"We have no power or possession that we 
can righteously call our own. He owns the 
whole of what we call ours ; and he makes a most 
reasonable demand when he asks that, without 
reserve or qualification, we yield ourselves linto 
him. These hands to work for him; this brain 
to think for him ; this tongue to speak for him ; 
these eyes to see for him. Yes. All for Jesus! 
It is said that Peter the Great was so blindly 
obeyed by his soldiers, that on one occasion, 
merely to show his absolute power over them, 
he said to a private who stood by his side on 
the top of a tower, whilst he pointed outward, 
"Leap !" The poor fellow saluted his sovereign, 
leaped, and was dashed to atoms. The French 
soldiers were so devoted to Napoleon I, that 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 77 

every man in his army was ready to lay down 
his life for his sake. With them it was all for 
Peter, or all for Napoleon. But shall they be 
more devoted to their earthly sovereigns than 
we to our Heavenly Lord? All for Jesus! All 
for Jesus ! He will lead us to battle, but to no 
defeat. His bloodless battles heal wounds in- 
stead of making them, bind up hearts instead of 
breaking them, save men instead of destroying 
them. All for Jesus! He has redeemed us to 
God by his blood; he is living to save us to the 
uttermost; he deserves more than all we can 
give. All for Jesus! All for Jesus !^* 

4. The mercy of God should lead us at once 
to consecrate all to him. Paul appeals to us, 
in view of the mercies of God, to give ourselves 
to him in an everlasting covenant. "I beseech 
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." 
(Romans xii, i.) 

The mercies of God! Who can describe 
them? Language is inadequate to portray them. 
All human utterances are lame at this point. 

God's mercy! Just think of that for a mo- 
ment ! Take in that wonderful thought if you 



yS Perfect Happiness 

can. The mercy of God ! It is topless and bot- 
tomless. It is an ocean without a shore. Could 
you fly with the speed of an archangel, and were 
you to go on in your rapid flight forever, you 
could never reach the shore of the boundless 
ocean of God's mercy. It was God's mercy that 
created us. Not a day passes but what my heart 
goes out in praise to God for my creation, for 
life with all its benefits, and for the brilliant pros- 
pects of future and eternal life. 

God's mercy redeemed us. When there was 
no eye to pity, and no created arm that could 
save, God pitied. His own right arm brought 
salvation to us. 

*'God so loved the world that he gave bis 
only begotten Son." The Son so loved the 
world, that he freely came to die for man. 

" Down from the shining seats above, 
With joyful haste he sped ; 
Entered the grave in mortal flesh, 
And dwelt among the dead." 

What redeemed soul does not cry out? 

" O for this love let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break, 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Savior's praises speak!" 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 79 

"Every drop of my blood thanks you," said 
a criminal to Dr. Doddridge, who had been re- 
leased from prison through the interposition of 
the Doctor, "because you have had mercy on 
every drop of my blood. Wherever you go I 
will follow you." 

May we not take up this strain, and chant 
our gratitude to Jesus ! Every drop of our blood 
thanks him. He has redeemed us, body and 
soul. He has thrown wide open the gates of 
glory, and we are invited to enter. 

What a motive is here presented to U€ to con- 
secrate all to God! 

But more. Have we been pardoned? Have 
we been adopted into the Divine family? Are 
we permitted to sit together in heavenly places 
in Christ Jesus? Hath he put a new song into 
our mouths, even praises unto our God? Do 
our hearts thrill with God's love, do our hopes 
beat high for heaven, and does faith open to our 
view the sublime glories of the heavenly world? 
If so, how great the demand to "present our 
bodies a living sacrifice" to God ! 

But not only are we to look at the mercies of 
God as seen in the past, in creation, redemption. 



8o Perfect Happiness 

preservation, pardon, and all life's benefits, but 
we are to look at the mercies of God in the char- 
tered pledges of the future. 

Christ lifted the veil, and gave us a glimpse 
of the glorious future when he said: "Let not 
your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me. In my Father's house are many 
mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told 
you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if 
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself; that where 
I am, there ye may be also." (John xiv, i, 2, 3.) 



u 



Beyond this vale of tears 

There is a life above, 
Unmeasured by the flight of years ; 

And all that life is love." 



We are born to live forever. We have en- 
tered upon a career that shall never end. Our 
pathway is to be an eternally ascending path- 
way. Our future is to be one of unfolding gran- 
deur. We shall pass on from one change to 
another, from one new scene of beauty to an- 
other, from glory to glory, for ever and ever. 

Wonderful have been the changes in the past ! 
What a change took place at conversion! We 



% 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 8i 

felt then as though we had entered a new world ; 
and we had. Old things had passed away, and 
all things had become new. We shall never for- 
get that hour. It will forever remain fresh on 
memory's page. 

What a change took place w^hen we were 
wholly sanctified! It seemed that we had 
stepped out into another new world; and we 
had — into a spiritual realm above and beyond 
the one in which we had been living. I shall 
never forget the hour when the cleansing blood 
touched my heart, and the last remnant of sin 
was washed away. I was prostrate upon the 
ground, with my face in the straw, at the Ben- 
nett Camp-meeting. I lay there deliberately 
making my consecration, and when the last 
piece of the sacrifice was laid upon the altar, and 
I said "Yes" to the great question that had 
staggered me so long, "Will you fling the ban- 
ner of holiness to the breeze, and under that 
banner will you march?" then the Paraclete 
came in all his wondrous power and sweetness. 

And as the changes have been great in our 
spiritual lives in the past, and each one has been 
greater and better than the one preceding it, so, 



82 Perfect Happiness 

methinks, will it be in all the future. What a 
change will take place, and what scenes of glory 
will burst upon our ravished vision when death 
comes, and our spirits, breaking away from the 
trammels of the body, shall emerge into the 
presence of Jesus, angels, and redeemed spirits ! 

A young man lay dying. His father and 
friends were standing by his side waiting for his 
departure. His strength was almost gone. The 
waves were gathering around him, and he was 
sinking in their embrace, when suddenly, as if 
inspired by some glorious vision breaking on his 
eyes, he cried : 'Xet me go, father, let me go ! I 
see Jesus !" And with the words upon his lips 
he passed away. 

A missionary in Africa lay dying. His coun- 
tenance was radiant with heavenly light. Just 
as he was passing away, he said : "I hear music, 
beautiful music, the sweetest melodies! I see 
glorious sights. I see heaven. Wonderful, won- 
derful, wonderful things I see. Let me go. O, 
how beautiful!" 

And, then, what a change that will be, when 
Gabriel's trump shall sound, and the resurrec- 
tion morn shall dawn, and these bodies of ours 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 83 

shall arise from their dusty beds, and shall be 
reunited to their souls ! 

As certain as day follows night, so certain will 
there be a resurrection of the dead. No doc- 
trine is more explicitly taught in God's Word, 
than the soul-inspiring doctrine of the resur- 
rection. "Christ shall change our vile body, 
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
body." (Phil, iii, 20, 21.) 

"All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 
and shall come forth ; they that have done good, 
unto the resurrection of life; and they that have 
done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." 
(John V, 28.) 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant 
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away, reserved in 
heaven for you." (i Peter i, 3, 4.) 

As certain as Christ's body rose from the 
grave, ascended to heaven, was made glorious 
and immortal, so will our bodies arise, be made 
immortal, and like imto Christ's glorious body. 



84 



Perfect Happiness 



And with our bodies raised and transformed, 
spiritualized and made immortal, we shall mingle 
and commune with those we knew and loved 
here on the earth. And hand in hand, and soul 
inwrought with soul, we shall pass on and up, 
from one happy change to another, higher and 
higher, for ever and ever. 

In view of the mercies of God, as seen in the 
chartered promises, touching the glorious fu- 
ture, should we not consecrate all to God? 

The mercies of God! How wonderful they 
are ! Think of his love, and you will be melted. 

Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, 
and when he entered the room he just put his 
hand on the sufferer's head, and said, ''My boy, 
God loves you," and went away. And the boy 
started from his bed, and called out to the people 
in the house, ''God loves me! God loves me!" 
The sense of God's love overpowered him, 
melted him down, and at once he gave himself 
and all he had to God. God loves me ! Glorious 
thought! How do I know? He has created 
me, redeemed me, pardoned me, adopted me 
into his family. I am one of his children. I sit 
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. A glorious 



Perfect Happmess Conditioned 85 

future is before me ! Unfading honors are soon 
to be mine! The gates of glory open to my 
view! My children and loved ones in heaven 
beckon me to come! Soon I shall hail them, 
and we shall part no more ! Is not this enough 
to melt the heart? As I think of it I cry out, 
^'I am thine, O Lord, forever thine !" And then 
the fact that I am forever God's, and God is 
forever mine, brings to me a joy that is "un- 
speakable." 

In view of all that God has done for us in the 
past, and all he is doing for us at the present, 
and all that he has promised us in the golden 
future, should we not consecrate all to him? 

The same spirit of consecration that was 
manifested by the soldiers for their country dur- 
ing the War of the Rebellion, should be mani- 
fested by every soldier of Christ. 

That was a wonderful spectacle, to step out 
under the flag and lift one's hands and swear 
allegiance to the Republic, and then go into 
the army and say by that act : "There may be 
hard work; I will go through it. There may be 
battles; I will go through them. There may be 
wounds and death; I will brave them. If neces- 



86 



Pe7'fect Happi7iess 



sary, I will march up to the cannon's mouth, 
though belching forth grape and flame." That 
is what the soldier did for his country. 
I once heard Chaplain McCabe say: 
"I have a picture of a soldier of Gettysburg in 
my collection; a man who received forty-eight 
wounds in one battle, and yet he lived. They 
thought he was dead. A shell burst right above 
his head, and a part of that shell tore oft his left 
hand, and a part of it tore out his right eye, and 
left him beside his gun apparently dead. The 
burial party picked him up and hurried him off 
to bury him, and on his way to the grave a sol- 
dier heard him groan, and he said, 'That man 
is alive;' and they took him to the hospital and 
put him under the charge of a surgeon, and the 
doctor says that for three days he lay there un- 
conscious, and upon the third day, his lips mov- 
ing, he bent his ear to catch the first faint words 
that might come from them, and they were these, 
'Doctor, did we win that fight?' That was all 
he wanted to know." 

So it seems to me that we ought to be so 
consecrated to God that we shall forget every- 
thing else except to bring this world to Christ. 



Perfect Happiness Co7tdztioned 87 

The ideal embodied in a redeemed life is 
high. It means not alone your own personal 
salvation, but that you are called to the work of 
saving the world. Nothing less exalted than this 
is the call to a Christian life. William Scott, the 
Vermont boy whose life Lincoln saved, after he 
had been condemned to be shot, is an example 
of how a redeemed Hfe spent itself in sacred serv- 
ice. Scott, in telling of his interview, said that 
Mr. Lincoln came to him and said: "My boy, 
stand up here and look me in the face. You are 
not going to be shot to-morrow. I am going to 
trust you, and send you back to your regiment. 
I have come away up from Washington when it 
was hard to come, and now, how will you pay 
my bill?" Scott said: "There was a big lump in 
my throat; I could scarcely speak, but I man- 
aged to say, 'I will pay you some way. I have 
some bounty money, and the boys will help, if 
it is n't more than five or six hundred dollars.' 
'But it is a great deal more than five or six hun- 
dred dollars,' said Mr. Lincoln ; and then he put 
his hands on my shoulders and said: 'My bill 
is a very large one, my boy. Your friends can 
not pay it, nor your bounty, nor your comrades, 



88 Perfect Happmess 

There is only one man in the world who can pay 
it, and his name is William Scott. If from this 
day William Scott does his duty so that at life's 
close he could say, I have kept my promise and 
have done my duty as a soldier, then my debt 
will be paid. Will you make that promise, and 
try to keep it?' I said I would make the prom- 
ise, and, with God's help, I would keep it. He 
went away out of my sight forever. May God 
forget me if I ever forget his kind words or my 
promise !" The record says that Scott became 
one of the truest, best soldiers ever known, and 
that he died risking his life in the rescue of 
wounded men, "being shot all to pieces." 
It is good for us to sing, 

" Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it !" 

but it is better still for us to live and serve like 
those who have been redeemed, realizing that 
our little hoards of treasure "can ne'er repay the 
debt of love we owe," for it is so great that as 
we look into the face of our Redeemer, we are 
constrained to say, "From this day we are thine, 
and wherever our Captain calls, however hard 
the post of duty, we will be faithful soldiers." 



\ 



CHAPTER V 

"Thy ^Vill Be Done" 

The heading of this chapter is a part of the 
Lord's Prayer; the most wonderful prayer that 
was ever offered. 

Happy is the man who can offer this prayer 
in sincerity and in truth. Yea, thrice happy is 
the man who can say, everywhere and all the 
time, in prosperity and in adversity, in sickness 
and in health, while living and when dying, "Thy 
will be done." 

If every Christian could offer this prayer in 
sincerity, and from the innermost depth of the 
soul could say to God the Father, "Thy will be 
done," there would not be one complaining, dis- 
couraged, fault-finding Christian in all the 
Churches of Christendom. Smiles would play 
on every Christian face, joy unspeakable would 
well up from every Christian soul, songs of glad- 
ness would roll forth from every Christian's lips, 
and the shout of victory would be heard from 

all the Churches the wide world over. 

89 



90 Perfect Happiness 

The will is the pivot on which human destiny 
turns. Men will to be saved, or will to be lost. 
Man, therefore, is the arbiter of his own destiny. 
Neither devils in hell, nor angels in heaven, can 
invade the orbit of the will. And God never will 
invade that orbit. Your will is supreme ; it is the 
regal faculty of the soul. God wills that you 
should be saved. If you will to be saved, your 
will and God's will are in harmony. And if you 
and God are in harmony, then you have rest, 
happiness, peace; "your peace is as a river, and 
your righteousness as the waves of the sea." 

No man is really happy whose will contra- 
venes the Divine will. Perfect happiness is never 
obtained until the will swings around, and runs 
parallel with God's will. 

When man's will is in harmony with God's 
will, he can be happy anywhere; in a palace or 
a hovel, on a throne, in the lion's den, or the 
furnace of fire. 

Methinks Daniel never passed a happier night 
in his life than he did when he pillowed his head 
upon the mane of the old lion, and around him 
the savage beasts of prey lay mute and harmless 
as kittens. 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 91 

I doubt whether the three Hebrew children 
were ever happier than they were when in the 
flaming furnace, the form of the fourth being 
with them. 

The prophet Amos pertinently asks, "Can 
two walk together except they be agreed?" 
(Amos iii, 3.) God and man can not walk to- 
gether, can not hold communion with each 
other, except they be agreed. The two wills, 
the Divine and the human, must run parallel. 
The very moment our will crosses God's will, 
there is a separation. 

Eliza Ambert, a young lady of Paris, reso- 
lutely discarded a gentleman to whom she was 
to have been married, because he ridiculed re- 
ligion. Having given him a gentle reproof, he 
replied, "That a man of the world could not be 
so old-fashioned as to regard God and religion.*' 
Eliza started, but on recovering herself said: 
"From this moment, sir, I cease to be yours. 
He who does not love and honor God, can never 
love his wife constantly and sincerely." The 
very moment she discovered that her will and 
the will of her afiQanced crossed, that very mo- 
ment there was a separation. 



92 Perfect Happiness 

If our will and God's will come in conflict, 
then we are not agreed ; and if not agreed, there 
is a separation, and a separation from God means 
misery. 

Before we can say, ''Thy will be done," our 
faith must grasp this idea, "God knows what is 
best for me. God will do what is best for me, 
if I only obey and trust him." Until we take 
in this great fact, our wills can not be in har- 
mony with God's will. 

The great trouble is, we fancy that we our- 
selves know what is best for us. One is ready 
to say, ''The best thing that could possibly hap- 
pen me would be to have a million dollars. I 
could do so much good with it." But God 
knows that that would be the very worst thing 
for you. He sees that the best thing for you, 
perhaps, is to be poor all your life. A good man 
once said to me, "God can not trust me with 
money; therefore, I am very poor." 

Another man is ready to say : "The best thing 
that could happen me would be for me to be on 
the high tide of prosperity all the time." But 
God knows that would not do at all; hence re- 
verses meet him at almost every turn in life. 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 93 

These seeming reverses are ''blessings in dis- 
guise." We think we know what is best for 
ourselves financially, socially, and in our domes- 
tic affairs. But the fact is, we do n't know. We 
think we do, but we do n't. God alone knows 
this. And it takes a great while for many of us 
to learn the lesson, ''God knows what is best 
for me." But let the great fact, "God knows 
what is best for me; God will do what is best 
for me," take full possession of us, and then we 
can say, without any hesitation whatever, "Thy 
will be done." 

I was once deeply impressed with the follow- 
ing remark made by a distinguished physician: 
"I dare not prescribe for myself or my family. 
When a man comes in, a stranger to me, I can 
look him over, and judge quite accurately as to 
what he needs to have done for him. But I 
can't look myself over in that impartial way, or 
my wife, or my children. I have been in practice 
in this city fifteen years, and I have a list of 
forty-two physicians within my personal knowl- 
edge who, in that time, have died from doses 
prescribed and administered to themselves by 
themselves. Suppose one-half of them to have 



94 Perfect Happiness 

b^en intentional suicides, and that is a large 
supposition, there remain twenty-one deaths re- 
sulting from taking the wrong dose. I dare not 
prescribe for myself." 

And so it is. Being fully assured that God 
knows what is best for me ; better than I do 
myself, infinitely better, I do not dare pre- 
scribe for myself. The wise thing for me to do 
is to put myself completely in God's hands, and 
say: ''Here I am, Lord; give me just the medi- 
cine you think I ought to have. I can not trust 
my own prescriptions. Yours are infallible." 

How many have said, ''I could have borne 
any sorrow easier than this !" And yet that very 
sorrow, so crushing, and which at the time 
seemed impossible to be endured, under the 
molding hand of the potter, has been one of the 
Divine agencies of making you a vessel of honor 
fit for the Master's use. 

Mr. Spurgeon said he was once driving in 
the north of England, and came to a large farm- 
house and barn. As he drew near he saw a 
gilded weather vane upon the barn, with this 
motto, "God is love." On reaching the gate he 
held up his horse, and said to the farmer : "Why 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 95 

do you put such a motto on a weather vane? Do 
you mean to say that God's love is as fickle as 
the wind that blows?' " 

"O no," replied the farmer; "I never thought 
of it in that way. What I mean is this, 'God is 
love whichever way the wind blows.' " 

Remember God is love, not only when there 
is sunshine, but when there are clouds as well. 

There was a little girl who began suddenly 
to suffer great pain in her head, and at last be- 
came quite blind. She was taken to a skilled 
doctor. After a thorough examination, the doc- 
tor said, ''She will never see again." When they 
told the child what the doctor had said, she ex- 
claimed: "What, mother, am I never more to 
see the sun, nor the beautiful fields; nor you, 
my dear mother; nor father? O, how shall I 
bear it?" She wrung her hands and cried bit- 
terly. Her mother placed in her hands a small 
Bible. "What is this?" said the sorrowful little 
girl. "It is the Bible, my child." The touch 
of that Book set memory at work ; and one pas- 
sage after another came into her mind ; and each 
one that came brought light with it. She 
brushed the tears from her eyes, ceased wringing 



96 Perfect Happiness 

her hands, and turning her sightless eyes up into 
the face of her mother, with a smile said, "Thy 
will be done in earth as it is in heaven." 

So Divine grace will enable every one to say 
in the darkest hour of adversity, ''Thy will be 
done." Then sorrow will be turned to gladness, 
and, instead of weeping, songs of everlasting 
joy will well up from the soul. 

Your will is your king. This king rules su- 
preme in every human heart. A great mistake 
that many make, is in thinking that a life of 
entire consecration to God is to be lived in the 
emotions, and consequently all the attention is 
directed toward them. If the feelings are satis- 
factory, they have rest ; if not, they are troubled. 
They are all the while looking at their feelings. 
If they have joyous feelings, they are perfectly 
satisfied ; on the other hand, if they do not have 
joyous feelings, great ecstasy, they are not satis- 
fied. Now, the truth is, and I wish everybody 
could see it, this life of entire consecration to 
God is not to be lived in the feelings at all, but 
in the will. If the will is kept steadfastly abid- 
ing in its center, God's will, you will not be dis- 
turbed, no matter what your feelings may be. 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 97 

I think it is Fenelon that says, 'Ture religion 
resides in the will alone." 

Behind our emotions, behind our wishes, 
back of all our desires, there is a still greater 
power — a power that decides everything and 
controls everything — that power is the will. 

And whenever we are brought to see clearly 
that the will is king, then we shall live without 
paying any attention to our emotions. 

Hannah Whitall Smith says: "A young man 
of great intelligence was seeking to enter into 
this new life — this life of entire consecration to 
God — and was utterly discouraged at finding 
himself a slave to an inveterate habit of doubt- 
ing. To his emotions nothing seemed real; and 
the more he struggled, the more unreal every- 
thing became. He was told this secret con- 
cerning the will; that if he would put his will 
over on the believing side, if he would choose 
to believe; in short, if he would say, 'I will be- 
lieve, I do believe,' — he need not then trouble 
himself about his emotions, for they would find 
themselves compelled, sooner or later, to come 
into harmony. 'What !' said he, 'do you mean 
to tell me that I can choose to believe in that 



98 Perfect Happiness 

bold way, when nothing seems true to me? And 
will that kind of believing be real?' 

" *Yes/ was the answer, 'it will. Your part 
is simply to put your will, in this matter of be- 
lieving, over on God's side, making up your 
mind that you will believe what God says, be- 
cause he says it, and pay no attention whatever 
to your feeHngs.' The young man paused a 
moment, and then said solemnly, 'I understand 
it. I will do what you say. I can not control 
my emotions; but I can control my will. I can 
give my will to God, and I do.' From that mo- 
ment, without paying any attention to his feel- 
ings, he confidently said, 'I choose to believe, 
I will believe, I do believe;' and in a few days 
he found himself triumphant, with every emo- 
tion and every thought brought into captivity to 
the power of the Spirit of God. He had caught 
the idea that his will was, after all, himself, and 
that if he kept that on God's side he was doing 
all he could do, and that God would take care 
of his feelings, and God did take care of his feel- 
ings, thrilling at times his whole being with a 
joy unspeakable." 

Keep your will on God's side. Choose to be- 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 99 

Jieve. Say, "I will believe, I do believe," and 
God will take good care of your feelings, and at 
times you will feel as Paul did when he said, 
''Whether in the body or out of the body, I can 
not tell." 

I once heard Amanda Smith, that wonderful 
woman, one of the noblest saints of God on the 
earth. During her talk she said, in substance: 
"A sister once came to me, and said : 'I do n't 
understand this. I feel so badly. I thought 
God had sanctified me. I guess I am mistaken. 
All is darkness. Do you ever feel that way?' " 
"Yes," replied Amanda. "What do you do when 
you feel that way?" ''Suppose you were dishing 
up dinner, and a cloud were to pass over the sun, 
what would you do?" "Why," said she, "I 
would go right on dishing up the dinner, of 
course." "That 's just what I do," said Amanda. 

The cloud does not prevent the sun shining. 
The sun shines just the same when there is a 
cloud, as when there is no cloud. If you can 
say in your innermost soul, "Thy will be done," 
let your feelings go. Give to the winds your 
fears. All is well. If we would say, "Thy will 
be done," we must, absolutely must, give our- 



lOO Perfect Happiness 

selves into the hands of God, to do or suffer as 
he may order. 

There was a device on an ancient medal, 
which has been adopted by a modern Missionary 
Society, that represents a bullock standing be- 
tween a plow and an altar, with this inscription, 
"Ready for either" — ready either to drag and 
swelter in the furrow, or to bleed and die on the 
altar of sacrifice. That is the position of every 
truly consecrated soul. He is ready to do God's 
will, whatever that may be. Ready to toil in the 
Master's vineyard, or ready to be laid aside; 
ready to do the will of God, or suffer the will of 
God ; ready to live, or ready to die. 

Mrs. Sigourney, the American poetess, lost 
her only son at the age of nineteen. In the depth 
of her anguish, she said, "God's time and will 
are beautiful, and through blinding tears I would 
fain give him praise." Her will was in harmony 
with God's will; hence in the hour of sore be- 
reavement she could say, "Thy will be done." 

Many years ago I preached near Ulysses, Ne- 
braska. My subject was, "Heart Purity." At 
the close of the service a lady came up to me, 
and said: "I have been earnestly praying for 



Perfect Happmess Conditioned roi 

purity of heart for more than a year. I do n't 
see why it is I can not obtain this blessing." 
She seemed in great distress, and I knew from 
her looks and actions that she greatly desired 
the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of 
Christ. I questioned her very closely, touching 
her consecration and faith, and it did seem to 
me that her consecration was perfect, and that 
her faith w^as genuine. I said to her: "I do not 
see where the difficulty is. But there must be 
a defect either in your consecration or in your 
faith." After talking with her some time, I said, 
"Is your will in harmony with God's will?" I 
saw in a moment that I had touched a tender 
chord. She broke down, and wept as though 
her heart would break. Recovering herself, she 
said: "About a year ago our little boy, the 
brightest child we had, fell into a kettle of boil- 
ing lard, and was burned to death. I do not 
see why God permitted that awful calamity to 
come upon us." I said to her: "Then you can 
not say as Job did, 'The Lord gave and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord.' " "No," said she, "I can not." "You 
can not say to God, 'Thy will be done?' " "O 



I02 Perfect Happiness 

no," said she. She turned and walked away with 
a sad heart. 

One year from that time I held a camp-meet- 
ing in the same neighborhood. That lady was 
present. When she came on the ground I knew 
from her looks that she was anything but a 
happy woman. I preached, and at the close of 
the sermon invited penitents to the altar. I also 
invited any who desired heart purity to come to 
the altar. ' She immediately arose, came forward, 
and fell upon her knees. I kneeled down in 
front of her, and said, "Sister, is your will in 
harmony with God's will?" She shook her head. 
I said nothing, but arose. A hymn was sung, 
and then we prayed. Another hymn was sung, 
and another prayer was offered. The interest 
of the meeting deepened, and the feeling be- 
came more and more intense. God came down 
upon that little company in that consecrated 
grove in wondrous power. At length it seemed 
to me that a cloud of glory descended, and set- 
tled right over the head of that struggling sister. 
In a moment afterwards she arose, her counte- 
nance radiant with heavenly light, and the very 
first words she uttered were : ''My will is in har- 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 103 

mony with God's will. I would not, if I could, 
call back my child." And a happier woman, it 
seemed to me, I never saw. The very moment 
her will swung around and was on a parallel with 
God's will, every obstacle to perfect happiness 
was swept out of the way. 

"I have concluded," said one, "that the best 
thing for me to do is to let God have his own 
way with me." 

The way to be contented and happy ; the way 
to go through this world triumphant; the way 
to be perfect master of every situation in life; 
in a word, the way to make life a song of sweet- 
est melody, is just to let God have his own way 
with you. 

"A perfectly holy life would be a perfect song. 
At the best on the earth our lives are imperfect 
in their harmonies; but if we are Christ's dis- 
ciples we are learning to sing while here, and 
some day the music will be perfect. It grows in 
sweetness here just as we learn to do God's will 
on earth as it is done in heaven. Only the Mas- 
ter's hand can bring out of our souls the music 
that slumbers in them. A violin lies on the table 
silent and without beauty. One picks it up and 



I04 Perfect Happiness 

draws the bow across the strings; but it yields 
only wailing discords. Then a master comes 
and takes it up, and he brings from the little 
instrument the most marvelous music. Other 
men touch our lives, and draw from them only 
jangled notes; Christ takes them, and when he 
has put the chords in tune he brings from them 
the music of love and joy and peace. It is said 
that once Mendelssohn came to see the great 
Freiburg organ. The old custodian refused him 
permission to play upon the instrument, not 
knowing who he was; At length, however, he 
granted him leave to play a few notes. Mendels- 
sohn took his seat, and soon the most wonderful 
music was breaking forth from the organ. The 
custodian was spell-bound. At length he came 
up beside the great musician, and asked his 
name. Learning it, he stood humiHated, self- 
condemned, saying, *And I refused you per- 
mission to play upon my organ !' There comes 
One to us, and desires to take our lives and play 
upon them. But we withhold ourselves from 
him, and refuse him permission, when, if we 
would but yield ourselves to him, he would bring 
from our souls heavenly music." 



CHAPTER VI 

Saving Faith 

We often hear persons use the phrase, "Sav- 
ing faith;" that is eminently proper, and it is 
Scriptural, because there is a faith that is not 
saving. 

In this chapter I desire to call the attention 
of the reader to the subject of saving faith and 
assuring faith. 

Saving faith is grounded on the Word of 
God; assuring faith is grounded on the witness 
of the Spirit. Saving faith is believing just what 
God says in his Word ; assuring faith is the Holy 
Ghost bearing witness with our spirit that we 
are saved. 

Saving faith implies three things: the intel- 
lectual belief of the truth, the affectionate ap- 
proval of the truth, and trust. 

Devils go one step with the Christian. They 
have the intellectual belief. They believe and 
tremble. Angels take two steps with the Chris- 
tian. They have the intellectual belief and the 

105 



io6 Perfect Happiness 

affectionate approval; but they do not have the 
third, which is trust. They are not sinners, and 
they do not need to trust Christ, for they are 
already safe. This may be illustrated by a ship- 
wreck. A man standing on the shore sees a 
ship go down with its freight of life. He sees 
a lifeboat launched to save the drowning crew. 
He believes in the lifeboat, he approves of it as 
a means of rescue, and as he sees one after an- 
other drawn safely to shore he raises the shout 
of gladness. Thus, there is joy in heaven among 
the angels of God when sinners are saved. The 
angels believe in the plan of salvation; they ap- 
prove of it, and rejoice at its results. But the 
sinner must trust in Christ, in order to salvation. 
He must not only believe that the lifeboat has 
been launched to save him ; but he must approve 
it as a means of salvation, and then trust in it. 

Saving faith, which includes the three ele- 
ments named — the intellectual belief, the affec- 
tionate approval, and trust — embraces the defi- 
nite blessings of the gospel instantaneously re- 
ceived. 

What are these blessings? Pardon and pur- 
ity. Pardon is what God does for us; regener- 



Perfect Happiriess Conditioned 107 

ation is what God does in us. And when a man 
is pardoned and regenerated, he is adopted into 
the Divine family, and becomes a child of God. 
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God. For ye have not re- 
ceived the spirit of bondage again to fear; but 
ye have received the Spirit of adoption, w^hereby 
we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans viii, 14.) 
These three — pardon, regeneration, and adop- 
tion — are simultaneous and instantaneous, all 
occurring at the same time, and are the result 
of our faith in the atoning merits of Christ. 

After this great work is wrought in the soul, 
there is still another work to be done. It is 
called in the Scriptures, "Holiness," or "Entire 
sanctification." 

One of the best Churches of Paul's day lacked 
this, and he earnestly prayed for the members 
of this Church, saying, "The very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly." Entire sanctification, like 
pardon and regeneration, is instantaneous, and 
is the result of our faith. 

The very moment we trust Christ for cleans- 
ing or entire sanctification, that very moment 
the wondrous work will be done. And when 



io8 Perfect Happiness 

this mighty work is wrought in the soul, and we 
are Hfted to the high plane of perfect love, then 
our peace will be as a river, and our happiness 
complete. 

I am afraid that many, many in the Churches 
to-day do not have saving faith. They have, 
possibly, the two first elements of saving faith. 
They have the intellectual belief and the affec- 
tionate approval ; but they do not have the third, 
trust, and consequently are without the indubi- 
table evidence that they are the children of God. 

The question has come to me with wonder- 
ful force and power. Why is it that there are so 
many that are without saving faith? Why is it 
that every member of the Church of God to-day 
does not have the faith of assurance? I think 
one reason is, because there are a great many 
^'unsafe teachers." There is a class of traveling 
evangelists who are very superficial in their 
teachings, and they never lead penitents beyond 
a head faith. ''Believe you have religion, and 
you have it." That is very unsafe and danger- 
ous teaching. Persons are told that they are 
Christians who have never truly repented of their 
sins ; have never had the deep, godly sorrow for 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 109 

sin that a genuine penitent has; and have never 
divorced themselves from all they know is 
wrong. 

Sorrow for sin, renunciation of all sin, and a 
determination never to sin again, precede saving 
faith. Paul says, "Godly sorrow worketh re- 
pentance to salvation, not to be repented of." 
(2 Corinthians vii, 10.) 

Genuine repentance includes deep, heartfelt 
sorrow for sin. It includes, also, a renunciation 
of all sin. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him 
return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 
upon him; and to our God, for he will abun- 
dantly pardon." (Isaiah Iv, 7.) 

When a man has deep sorrow for having 
sinned against God, and is willing to forsake, at 
once and forever, all that is wrong, then he is on 
believing ground, and it is easy for him to exer- 
cise saving faith; and exercising saving faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, he will have given him 
the faith of assurance. The Holy Spirit will 
assure him that he is an ''heir of God and a joint 
heir with Jesus Christ." 
- In his book on ''How to be Saved," Bishop 



no Perfect Happiness 

William Taylor describes the unsafe advisers of 
penitents. He says, "Some say, Believe that 
God receives you now, and he will." To this 
he replies, "But suppose he does not, in fact, re- 
ceive the said sinner at that moment, then he is 
asked to believe what is not true." "It is, how- 
ever, not uncommon for persons to say, 'I do 
submit, and do believe; but I can't get any re- 
lief.' Such persons simply mistake their own 
assumptions for facts." Then he cites the case 
of a lady in Sydney, who was having a hard 
struggle at the altar. He said to her, "My sister, 
have you surrendered yourself unreservedly to 
God?" "O yes, I do give up everything — to be 
or to do whatever is his will." "Are you believ- 
ing in Jesus?" "O yes, I do; I do accept him 
as my Savior." "Do you realize peace with God 
through believing?" "No, sir; I am sorry to say 
I experience no comfort whatever." Nine out 
of ten of the unsafe advisers of penitents above 
referred to would have said: "Now, my sister, 
having sincerely done the best you could, you 
must believe that God does now forgive your 
sins. There is nothing more that you can do." 
But not thus did Bishop Taylor, who has led 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned iii 

tens of thousands into the kingdom of God. 
Mark his reply : ''Now, my dear sister, allow me 
to say, I can not see your heart, and you may not 
see it as you ought; but God, the Holy Spirit, 
who is leading you to seek Jesus, sees it just as 
it is; and I tell you, that the very moment he 
sees that from your heart you do submit fully to 
God's will, and do in your heart accept Jesus 
Christ as your Savior, that very moment he will 
remove the burden of guilt from your con- 
science, shed abroad the love of God in your 
heart, and assure you of the fact that being justi- 
fied by faith you have peace with God." She 
went into a rigid and thorough heart-searching, 
and wept as though her heart would break ; and, 
in fact, repented and believed the gospel, and 
was filled with joy unspeakable. Now, it is clear 
that this woman's repentance at the first was 
superficial, and her faith in Jesus was in conse- 
quence not saving. Had the bishop said to her, 
''Believe that God is now pardoning," she would 
have believed an untruth, and she might have 
wandered all her life in darkness. Such danger- 
ous advice to a soul on the very margin of sal- 
vation ought never to be given. There was no 



112 Perfect Happiness 

danger in the advice given by the bishop. It is 
said that the testimony comes from all lands, that 
William Taylor's converts abide with the least 
percentage of loss. The reason is, they are led 
to exercise saving faith in Jesus. This brings 
assuring faith; and, having this, they are on the 
Rock of Ages, and, standing here, the winds of 
adversity and the fierce storms of temptation 
have but little effect upon them. Reader, are 
you on the Rock? 

Whenever a person truly repents of his sins, 
abandons at once and forever all he knows to be 
wrong, surrenders unconditionally to God, and 
believes in Jesus Christ as his Savior; that very 
moment God saves him, and sends the witness- 
ing Spirit. Salvation by faith, therefore, is in- 
stantaneous. 

How hard it is to get people to see this! If 
salvation were by works, it would not be instan- 
taneous, because works take time. Being by 
faith, no definite period of time is required. The 
very moment we believe, that very moment we 
are saved. 

Bishop Taylor cites another case, as an illus- 
tration of instantaneous salvation. He says: 



Perfect Happiness Co7tditioned 113 

^'Passing around among the seekers one night, 
I approached a seeker and explained to him in 
simpHcity how to be saved by faith. After hst- 
ening attentively till I had done, he promptly 
replied': 'I am a Scotchman, sir. I can't get 
into it by such a short method as that. It will 
take me a long time to work my way in.' 'Yes, 
sir; if it depended on your works, you might 
struggle on till the day of your death, and would 
never get into the kingdom at all. But if you 
must be saved, ''not by works of righteousness, 
but by the mercy of God," in virtue of the per- 
fected atonement and gracious provisions of 
Jesus, why not now? God can save a Scotchman 
as quickly as he can save an Irishman or any 
other man or form of man in the world, and he 
will save any and every man the very moment 
he does submit and believe.' " After struggling 
for a long time, he took the advice of the good 
bishop, surrendered, believed, and, quicker than 
a flash of lightning, salvation came to his heart, 
and then he went everywhere telling how simple 
and easy it is to be saved. 

A revival was in progress in an Eastern city. 
A little girl was under deep conviction. She 

8 



114 Perfect Happiness 

wanted to go to the altar as a seeker; but her 
father, who was an unbeliever, refused her per- 
mission. One night she was sitting in the same 
seat with her father, and when the invitation was 
given for seekers to come to the altar, she slipped 
out of the pew, glided down the aisle, and fell 
upon her knees at the chancel. The father fol- 
lowed quickly after her, and just as she bowed 
at the altar picked her up in his arms, and started 
back to his seat. The little girl looked up into 
the face of her father with a smile, and said : "It 
is too late, father. I have given my heart to 
Jesus, and he saves me." 

How many there are who think they must 
shed so many tears, make so many prayers, 
mourn so many days, before they can be saved! 
All this implies that these persons imagine that 
they can do something themselves that will in 
some degree merit pardon. Tears will not save 
you, prayers will not save you, struggling will 
not save you, mourning will not save you. Faith 
alone will save you. The very moment you can 
trust Christ with the heart, that very moment 
salvation will come to your soul. 

Mr. Spurgeon tells of a young lady who came 




Perfect Happiness Conditioned 115 

to him in great distress about her soul, and 
earnestly seeking relief. He explained to her 
the simple method of salvation by faith, and 
while talking to her light came into her face in 
a moment, and she said: "Yes, I see it. I am 
saved, because I trust Jesus." "That is it," said 
Mr. Spurgeon, "you are on the rock now." "I 
feel," said she, "a deep peace coming into my 
soul ; but I can not understand it, for my grand- 
father was an Old-school Presbyterian, and he 
told me that it took him six years to get in, and 
he had to be put into an insane asylum, for he 
was so miserable." "Yes," said Mr. Spurgeon, 
"some people will go seventeen thousand miles 
around, merely to get across the street ; but there 
is no need for it." Paul says : "The word is nigh 
thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart ; that is, 
the word of faith which we preach. P'or with the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness." (Ro- 
mans X, 9, 10.) 

"But I am not fit to go to Christ," says one ; 
and he thinks he must do something to make 
himself fit. The fittest way in the world to go 
to Christ, is to go just as you are. What is the 
best livery for a beggar to wear? A beggar went 



ii6 Perfect Happiness 

to a farmer ; the farmer pitied him, and gave him 
a pair of patent-leather boots. The beggar 
thanked him, and put them on. Some days 
afterwards the farmer met the beggar; but he 
did not have on the patent-leather boots. He 
soon found that they were not the style of boots 
at all for a beggar to wear. People would look 
at him, and say : ''What ! you want money while 
wearing those fine boots? Your tale won't do." 
A beggar succeeds a great deal better barefoot 
than in fine shoes. "Rags are the livery of 
mendicants." 

When you go to beg for mercy at the hand 
of God, do n't go with your fine clothes of self- 
righteousness ; but go with your sin, and misery, 
and emptiness, and wretchedness, and say: 

" Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin. 
And born unholy and unclean ; 
Thy law demands a perfect heart, 
But I 'm defiled in every part." 

And having made the confession, then plead the 
promise, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." 
(l Timothy i, 15.) 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 117 



When Charlotte Elliott was a girl in her teens 
she was preparing for a grand ball to be given 
in her native town. Full of gay anticipations, 
she started out one day to get her a fine dress 
for the occasion. On her way she met her pas- 
tor. He learned what she was intending to do, 
and he endeavored to dissuade her from her 
purpose. He reasoned and expostulated, and 
earnestly pleaded with her to stay away from 
the ball. Charlotte became angry, and said, ''I 
wish you would mind your own business." In 
due time the ball came off, and Charlotte was 
there, the gayest of the gay. She was flattered 
and petted and caressed. Having danced nearly 
all night, she returned home to lay her weary 
head upon her pillow; but not to sleep. In all 
her pleasure there had been a thorn. She passed 
three wretched days — the most unhappy days of 
her life. Her misery became almost insupport- 
able, when she hurried away to her pastor, and 
said: "For three days I have been the most 
wretched girl in the world, and now, O that I 
were a Christian! I want to be happy. What 
must I do?" 

Her pastor said, ''Just give yourself, my 



1 1 8 Perfect Happiness 

child, to the Lamb of God; just as you are." 
This was a new gospel to her; she had never 
comprehended it before. 

"What! Just as I am?" she said. "Do you 
know that I am one of the worst sinners in the 
world? How can he accept me just as I am?" 

"That is exactly what you must do," said her 
pastor. "You must come to him just as you are." 

The young girl was overwhelmed. She 
went into her room, kneeled down, offered God 
her heart, vile as it was, to be cleansed and made 
fit for his own indwelling. And while she 
prayed the answer came, and her whole soul was 
flooded with light and joy. Inspired by the new 
and rapturous experience, she then and there 
wrote that wonderful hymn — -a hymn that has 
passed into the hymnology of the world, a hymn 
that has been sung all around this planet, a 
hymn that has led hundreds to Christ : 

" Just as I am without one plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me, 
And that thou bid'st me come to thee, 
O, Lamb of God, I come." 

Reader, come to Jesus, just as you are, ac- 
knowledge your guilt, and trust in him alone. 



CHAPTER VII 

Saving Faith 

The three elements of saving faith named in 
the preceding chapter, the intellectual belief of 
the truth, the affectionate approval, and trust, 
apply to every state of grace. 

F'aith is the condition of every step in the 
divine life. It is the condition of pardon, the 
condition of purity, the condition of heaven. 
We get just what we believe for. Christ says, 
*What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, 
believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have 
them." (Mark xi, 24.) 

When faith is genuine, it is always distinct, 
and put forth for a particular object. A very 
common question with our Lord was, ''Believe 
3^e that I am able to do this?" 

Blind Bartimeus cried out to the Savior, say- 
ing: "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on 
me. Jesus answered and said unto him. What 
wilt thou that I do unto thee? The blind man 
said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my 

sight. And Jesus said unto him. Go thy way; 

119 



I20 Perfect Happiness 



thy faith hath made thee whole. And immedi- 
ately he received his sight, and followed Jesus 
in the way." (Mark x, 51, 52.) He got just 
what he believed for — eyesight. 

The leper said to Jesus, "Lord, if thou wilt, 
thou can'st make me clean." This was his faith. 
Jesus said : ''I will ; be thou clean. And immedi- 
ately his leprosy was cleansed." (Matthew viii, 
2, 3.) He received just what he believed for — 
cleansing. 

A father went to the Savior with his son pos- 
sessed with a dumb spirit. That father felt only 
as a father could feel under such circumstances. 
His own loved boy v\'as under the complete 
power of Satan. With the deepest anguish of 
heart, the father cried out: "If thou canst do 
anything, have compassion on us, and help us. 
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all 
things are possible to him that believeth." The 
father exclaimed: "Lord, I believe; help thou 
mine unbelief. And the spirit came out of him." 
(Mark ix, 23-25.) He obtained just what he 
believed for — the deliverance of his son from 
the possession of a dumb devil. 

The Syrophenician woman believed for the 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 121 

deliverance of her daughter from the power of 
the "unclean spirit," and she received just what 
she believed for. The faith of all these persons 
was put forth for a distinct object, and they all 
received that for which they believed. 

The blind man believed for eyesight, and re- 
ceived it. The leper believed for cleansing, and 
received it. The father believed for the deliver- 
ance of his son from the possession of the dumb 
devil, and the son was saved. The mother be- 
lieved for the deliverance of her daughter from 
the unclean spirit, and the daughter was rescued 
from his toils, restored, and made pure. To-day, 
as eighteen hundred years ago, we get just what 
we believe for. If we believe for pardon, we get 
pardon. If we believe for perfect love, we get 
perfect love. If we believe for the anointing of 
the Holy Ghost to qualify us for work, we re- 
ceive the anointing. 

Is your religious experience unsatisfying? 
Ask God for that which will satisfy, then believe 
for it, and, as sure as God reigns, he will give 
you the desire of your heart. 

A Christian young lady of Nebraska City, 
whom we have known for years, became dissatis- 



122 Perfect Happiness 

fied with her religious experience. She had 
heard and read of sanctification ; but she did not 
understand theoretically the doctrine. She 
kneeled down in prayer, and said : "O Lord, I do 
not know exactly what entire sanctification is; 
but, O Lord, I want it; give it to me." The 
answer came in an instant. Rising from her 
knees with radiant face, beaming eyes, a glowing 
heart, and the shout of victory upon her lips, 
she said, "I have got it." From that moment 
she has been happier than a queen, and the min- 
ister of a flaming evangel for God. She got just 
what she desired and believed for. And so it 
will always be. Believe for just what you feel 
your soul needs, and you will get it. Christ has 
declared it, and Christ's Word can not fail. 
'What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, be- 
Heve that ye receive them, and ye shall have 
them." 

Whenever the conditions are met, then it is 
easy to exercise saving faith. 

When the sinner, seeking pardon, meets the 
conditions, abandons at once and forever all 
wrong, and surrenders himself wholly to God, 
then faith is simple and easy. 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 123 

When the Christian, seeking heart-purity, 
meets the conditions, consecrates himself forever 
to God, then it is easy for him to believe for just 
what he feels he needs. 

Meet the conditions, and then saving faith is 
just the simplest thing in the world. Many look 
upon faith as a very mysterious thing, some- 
thing very hard to be understood. Never was 
there a greater mistake. 

A little girl was asked, "What is faith?'* Her 
prompt reply was, ''Taking God at his word, 
and asking no questions." No doctor of divin- 
ity could give a better definition of faith than 
that. And is there anything mysterious about 
that? A young lady went to a friend, and said: 
''You tell me I must have faith in God, I must 
believe in Christ, in order to be saved ; now, how 
can I believe, how can I have faith? I have 
tried and tried, and I can not. I am groping in 
the dark. Now you seem to take things for 
granted, and rest on that. I can not do so. I 
must know I am saved in order to believe it; 
tell me once more what it is to have faith in 
God." 

Her friend replied : "You have just given a 



124 Perfect Happmess 

better explanation of faith than any I can think 
of. You must take things for granted. When 
you came to me this afternoon, you took it for 
granted I would listen, and help you if I could; 
just so when you go to God, take it for granted 
he hears, and when you -confess your sins and ask 
forgiveness, remember his promise, 'Ask and ye 
shall receive/ and take it for granted that he 
forgives you." 

*'Is that all?" she inquired; "and is that 
faith?" 

"That is all; that is faith," replied her friend. 

The next time she met her friend, she said, 
"I am taking things for granted, and I am very 
happy." She was believing God's Word with- 
out the shadow of a doubt. 

Saving faith is not only a very simple thing, 
but a very reasonable thing. Unbelief is an un- 
reasonable and God-dishonoring thing. 

Hannah Whitall Smith shows the unreason- 
ableness of unbelief in the following language: 

"You do not hesitate to say, I am a poor, 
weak creature, and have no faith. I wish you 
would try to imagine yourself acting in your 
human relations as you do in your spiritual re- 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 125 

lations. Suppose you should begin to-morrow 
with the notion in your head that you could not 
trust anybody, because you had no faith. When 
you sat down to breakfast you would say, 'I can 
not eat anything on this table, for I have no faith, 
and I can not believe the cook has not put 
poison in the coffee, or that the butcher has not 
sent home diseased or unhealthy meat;' so you 
would go starving away. When you went out 
to your daily avocation you would say, 'I can 
not ride in the railway train, for I have no 
faith; and, therefore, I can not trust the engi- 
neer, nor the conductor, nor the builders of 
the carriages, nor the managers of the road.' 
And you would be compelled to walk every- 
where, and would grow unutterably weary in the 
effort, besides being actually unable to reach the 
places you could have reached in the train. 
When your friends met you with any statements, 
or your business agent with any accounts, you 
would say, 'I am very sorry that I can not be- 
lieve you, but I have no faith, and never can 
believe anybody.' If you opened a newspaper, 
you would be forced to lay it down again, say- 
ing: 'I really can not believe a word this paper 



126 Perfect Happiness 

says, for I have no faith; I do not beUeve there 
is any such person as the queen, for I never saw 
her; nor any such country as Ireland, for I was 
never there. I have no faith; so, of course, I 
can not beHeve anything I have not personally 
felt and touched. It is a great trial; but I can 
not help it, for I have no faith/ " 

Just picture such a day as this, and see how 
disastrous it would be to yourself, and what utter 
folly it would appear to any one who should 
watch you through the whole of it. Realize 
how your friends would feel insulted, and how 
your servants would refuse to serve you another 
day. And then ask yourself the question. If this 
want of faith in your fellow-men would be so 
dreadful, and such utter folly, what must it be 
when you tell God that you have no power to 
trust him, nor to believe his Word; that it is a 
great trial ; but you can not help it, for you have 
no faith! 

Is it possible that you can trust your fellow- 
men, and can not trust your God; that you can 
receive the "witness of men," and can not receive 
the "witness of God ;" that you can believe man's 
records, and can not believe God's record; that 



Perfect Happiness Conditioned 127 

you can commit your dearest earthly interests 
to your weak, failing fellow-creatures without a 
fear, and are afraid to commit your spiritual 
interests to the Savior who laid down his life for 
you, and of whom it is declared that "He is able 
to save to the uttermost all who come unto God 
by him?" 

Reader, never, never, never say again: ''I 
have no faith. I can not trust Christ." Say 
rather, "I can trust my Lord, and I will trust 
him; and not all the powers of earth and hell 
shall be able to make me doubt my wonderful, 
glorious, faithful Redeemer!" 

Trust Christ for pardon, and you will have 
it. Trust him for purity, and you will have it. 
Trust him for peace, and you will have it. Trust 
him for victory over every opposing power that 
may meet you along the pathway of life, and it 
will be given you. Trust him everywhere, and 
all the time. Trust him with your body; trust 
him with your soul ; trust him with your loved 
ones; trust him with everything you have for 
time and for eternity. And earth will not be a 
''howling wilderness," but an Eden. 

Do you wanN: perfect happiness? Meet the 



128 Perfect Happiness 

conditions. Make an everlasting dedication of 
body, soul, and spirit to God, trust in Jesus 
Christ to wash vour sin-stained heart 'Svhiter 

ml 

than snow," and then take it for granted that the 
great work is done, and the result will be a 
great peace, an undisturbed repose will come 
into 5^our soul, and the sweet quiet reigning 
within will be a foretaste of the perfected joys 
awaiting you in heaven. 



PART III 



Perfedl Happiness Experi- 
enced 



129 



CHAPTER VIII 

AA/'itnesses 

I AM glad that we are not without many clear, 
ringing, and unmistakable witnesses to the great 
and soul-inspiring fact that perfect salvation 
brings to the heart perfect happiness. 

History furnishes many bright examples of 
persons perfectly saved and perfectly happy. 
These examples stand out in sublime grandeur 
all along the history of the past. It is well for 
us to pause, and gaze upon these marvelous ex- 
amples of Divine grace. It is well to open our 
ears, and listen for a moment to their thrilling 
utterances. 

More than six hundred years before the ad- 
vent of Christ, Habakkuk, under Divine inspi- 
ration, saw the coming of Nebuchadnezzar with 
his mighty army upon the Jews. He saw the 
whole country devastated and laid waste; the 
herds destroyed, the flocks scattered, the fruits, 
the grains, and every vegetable swept away. 

How graphically he paints the dreadful scene! 

131 



132 Perfect Happiness 



He saw not only the whole country laid waste, 
but he beheld the Jews in chains, slavery, and 
starvation staring every one in the face. 

Certainly such a scene as that was enough to 
unnerve the strongest arm, make the stoutest 
heart quake, and the boldest cheek blanch. 
Could a man be happy with such a scene before 
him? Could a man rejoice amid such awful sur- 
roundings and dire calamities? If he could, he 
must have more than human power imparted 
unto him. But mark the prophet ! As he looks 
upon the desolate scene he is not dismayed, 
neither melancholy nor sad. His eye brightens, 
his soul kindles, his face lustrous with heavenly 
light, and his faith stronger than ever, he cries 
out in exultations of triumph: ''Although the 
iig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be 
in the vines ; the labor of the olive shall fail, and 
the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be 
cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd 
in the stalls ; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will 
joy in the God of my salvation." (Hab. iii, 17, 
18.) If we live a life hid with Christ in God we 
shall have happiness, no matter what may be our 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 133 

surroundings. Happiness does not depend upon 
any of these things. 

David's pathway had been a very rough and 
dangerous one. For years he was hunted by 
the envious Saul, as the partridge is hunted upon 
the mountain side. Many were his hairbreadth 
escapes. These dangers and persecutions im- 
pressed upon him a sense of dependence upon 
God, and he was led to trust God for deliverance 
and help, and God never disappointed him. 

^'I love the I^ord, because he hath heard my 
voice and my supplications. . . . For thou 
hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes 
from tears, and my feet from falling." (Psalm 
cxvi, I, 8.) So perfect w^as his obedience, and 
so strong his faith, that he won from God the 
approving w^ords, "A man after mine own 
heart." (Acts xiii, 22?) 

Step by step he went up until he reached the 
highest plane of religious experience, and his 
perfected joy found expression in those most 
wonderful w^ords recorded in the twenty-third 
Psalm. 

In an hour of holy and grateful musings he 



134 Perfect Happiness 

dwells upon his past career. He thinks of how 
he ''was taken from the sheepfold," and how 
strangely he had been led by the Divine hand, 
not only during the early part of his life, but 
during later years, when regal responsibilities 
were upon him. And at the remembrance of 
constant and never-failing Divine care his heart 
wells up in the glad testimony, "The Lord is my 
shepherd," etc. 

The twenty-third Psalm is the expression of 
a heart perfectly contented and perfectly happy. 
Such an assurance, as these marvelous words in- 
dicate, brought to David's heart a joy that noth- 
ing earthly could possibly bring. To have such 
an experience is the very acme of earthly bliss; 
it is heaven on earth. And if David had it, we 
may all have it. 

Daniel Steele says, "Heaven laps over on the 
earth." Yes, and on this heavenly lap the 
wholly-sanctified soul walks. 

Among Paul's last writings was his Epistle 
to the Ephesians. It was written in his old age, 
when his experience was the richest and the 
ripest. He constantly speaks of being in "heav- 
enly places." Heaven had begun with him long 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 135 

before he left the earth. "Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly 
places in Christ." (Ephesians i, 3.) 

"God hath raised us up together, and made 
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 
(Id., ii, 6.) 

Even while here on the earth we are in heav- 
enly places, and are indescribably happy in the 
enjoyment of the fullness of the blessing of 
Christ. 

Paul swam rivers, climbed mountains, sailed 
oceans. He was stoned by his enemies, beaten 
with rods, imprisoned and suffered every indig- 
nity from the hands of his foes, and yet I doubt 
whether there was a happier man in all Europe 
or Asia than the great apostle. 

Dr. Payson went up to the loftiest plane of 
religious experience, and according to his own 
testimony his happiness was perfect. Having 
reached the mountain-peak of perfect bliss, he 
says: 

"Hitherto I have viewed God as a fixed star, 
bright indeed, but often intercepted by clouds; 
but now he is coming nearer and nearer, and 



136 Perfect Happiness 



spreads into a sun so vast and glorious that the 
sight is too dazzling for flesh and blood to sus- 
tain." Hear him again : "When I read Bunyan's 
description of the land of Beulah, ^Yhere the sun 
shines and the birds sing day and night, I used 
to doubt whether there was such a place; but 
now my own experience has convinced me of it, 
and it infinitely transcends all my previous con- 
ceptions." 

Again he says : "If my happiness continues to 
increase, I can not support it much longer. 
Formerly my joy was tumultuous, now all is 
calm and peaceful." Writing to a friend, he 
says: "Were I to adopt the figurative language 
of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land 
of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks 
a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in 
view; its odors are wafted to me; its sounds 
strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed 
into my heart." Again he says: "O, what a 
blessed thing it is to lose one's will! Since I 
have lost my will I have found happiness. There 
can be no such thing as disappointment to me, 
for I have no desire but that God's will may be 
accomplished." 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 137 

Rev. William Bramwell tells of his sanctifi- 
cation in the following words: ^'The Lord, for 
whom I had waited, came suddenly to the tem- 
ple of my heart. My soul was all wonder, love, 
and praise." And for twenty-six years he 
walked in this glorious liberty. 

Dr. Upham, one of the noble saints of God 
on earth, says of his sanctification : "I was dis- 
tinctly conscious when I reached it. I was re- 
deemed by a mighty power, and filled with the 
blessing of perfect love." 

Mrs. Phoebe Palmier, who during her life led 
twelve thousand souls to Christ for pardon, and 
thousands over into the land of perfect love, in 
speaking of her sanctification, says: "I rejoice 
in the assurance that I was wholly sanctified 
throughout body, soul, and spirit. O, with what 
triumph did my soul expatiate on the infinitude 
of the atonement ! I saw its unbounded efficacy 
as sufficiency to cleanse a world of sinners, and 
present them faultless before the throne. I felt 
that I was enabled to plunge and lose myself in 
this ocean of purity. Yes, 

" Plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea, 
And lost in love's immensity." 



138 Perfect Happiness 



Rev. Henry Smith, for many years a promi- 
nent preacher in the Baltimore Conference, says : 
^'After a long and painful struggle, my soul, by 
simple believing, stepped into liberty. I am 
happy, solidly happy, in the enjoyment of perfect 
love." The high plane of perfect love is not 
reached by any without a hard struggle; but 
when reached, the believer is rewarded a thou- 
sand-fold. 

Mrs. Edwards, wife of President Edwards, 
sought and obtained what she called "the full 
assurance of faith," and what Methodists call 
perfect love," or "holiness," and then gives her 
glowing experience in the following language: 
"I can not find language to express how certain 
the everlasting love of God appeared; the ever- 
lasting mountains and hills were but shadows 
to it. My safety and happiness, and eternal en- 
joyment of God's immutable love seemed as dur- 
able and unchangeable as God himself. . . . 
My soul remained in a heavenly elysium. It 
was a pure delight which fed and satisfied my 
soul." 

We might go on and multiply without num- 
ber witnesses to the fact that perfect salvation 



li 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 139 



brings to the heart perfect happiness. Thou- 
sands can testify to the same baptism of power, 
of love, and of heavenly sweetness which these 
witnesses describe. 

To the above I may add my own experience. 
I give it with deep humility, and only that it 
may be helpful to others. 

I can not remember when I was first con- 
victed of sin. I always felt that I was a sinner, 
and unless converted, ''born again," I should be 
lost forever. I attribute my early conviction of 
sin to the faithful instructions given me by a 
devoted father and mother. F'rom my very ear- 
liest recollections, I was taught the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity. The depravity of the 
heart, the necessity of pardon and regeneration, 
a general judgment-day, a hell into which all 
the finally impenitent will be turned, a heaven 
where all the pure will enter and be forever per- 
fectly happy, were doctrines instilled into my 
mind from earliest childhood, all of which I 
found clearly taught in God^s Word. I have al- 
ways been grateful to God for the many well- 
defined points in my religious experience. I was 
clearly and powerfully convicted of sin, clearly 



140 Perfect Happiness 

and powerfully converted, clearly and power- 
fully convicted of the need of a clean heart, and 
just as clearly received that blessing. 

On Tuesday, August 13, 1872, the first camp- 
meeting for the promotion of holiness in Ne- 
braska began at Bennett. The attendance was 
not large; but the meeting from the very be- 
ginning was marked with unusual manifestations 
of the Divine power. At every meeting souls 
were saved. Many were converted, and many 
were wholly sanctified. On each succeeding day 
the tide of spirituality rose higher and higher, 
and the culminating point was reached on the 
Sabbath, which was the great day of the feast. 
The overshadowing presence of the Shekinah 
was felt by all throughout the entire day. Dur- 
ing the love-feast, which lasted one hour and five 
minutes, one hundred and five testimonies were 
given, and the congregation sung fifteen differ- 
ent times. We had never witnessed anything 
like this. It seemed that It was Pentecost re- 
peated. The whole day was one of power. 

I had been under conviction for heart-purity 
for some time, and went to this meeting with 
somewhat confused ideas touching the doctrine, 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 141 

and with a religious experience not at all satis- 
fying. Under the clean-cut preaching of the 
doctrine, and the many ringing testimonies, we 
were led to the most rigid and thorough heart- 
searchings. The spiritual conflict with me was 
long and severe. I was at that time presiding 
elder of the Lincoln District. To go down in 
the straw as a seeker of holiness was indeed hu- 
miliating. What would the people of my dis- 
trict think of me? Would they think that I had 
been preaching all these years without religion? 
Would they not say, ^'During all these years 
you have been a hypocrite?" What would the 
preachers say? What effect would such a step 
have upon my future appointments in the Con- 
ference? These and many other questions con- 
fronted me; but I had little dif^culty in dispos- 
ing of them all. Then the enemy said : "Are you 
willing to be called one of the sanctified ones? 
Are you willing to have the people say, 'He 
thinks himself holier than we?' Are you willing 
to take the odium that will attach to you if you 
seek this blessing?" 

All these questions I answered in the afiBrm- 
ative, as they came, one by one. The final test 



142 Perfect Happiness 

was applied. The last great question came. It 
was a staggering one, "Will you publish to the 
world the great doctrine of holiness?" I hesi- 
tated. The question was pressed home to my 
heart with increasing force and power. Still I 
hesitated. It was a hard question to answer, and 
involved grave responsibilities. The conflict 
went on in my heart for two days or more. No 
one on the ground knew anything about it. It 
was a secret but mighty conflict with the powers 
of darkness, a hand-to-hand grapple with the 
arch-fiend of hell. Again the question came, 
'Will you fling to the breeze the banner of holi- 
ness, and under that banner will you march?" 
Still I hesitated. But finally I said, as I lay with 
my face in the straw, "Yes, Lord, I will." The 
battle was ended, the enemy completely routed, 
the victory gained ; and there came into my heart 
a wonderfully sweet peace. There was no great 
ecstasy; no rapturous joy; no great emotion. 
But a sweet quiet reigned within. "The peace 
of God which passeth all understanding" took 
possession of my soul. God said to his ancient 
people: "O, that thou hadst hearkened to my 
commandments! Then had thy peace been as 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 143 

a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of 
the sea." I saw and knew the meaning of that 
passage of Scripture as never before. Look at 
the majestic river as it sweeps onward, calm and 
unruffled, to the ocean, with scarcely a ripple 
upon its surface. There may be disturbing ele- 
ments on either side of that river. Along its 
banks cities may be burned, bloody battles may 
be fought, raging epidemics may sweep away 
thousands of the people; but the river, undis- 
turbed, moves onward amid all these scenes, 
"the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 

There may be disturbing elements all along 
the Christian's pathway; there may be disturb- 
ing elements in the home, in business matters, 
in the Church, in the community. But away 
down in the soul is the settled peace, the great 
calm; and this undisturbed calm reigns amid all 
these disturbing elements, the same day after 
day, and year after year. 

From that day until the present the doctrine 
of entire sanctification has been to me the sweet- 
est and most blessed of all the doctrines of the 
Bible. 

I am sorry that I can not say that my experi- 



144 Perfect Happiness 

ence during all these years has not been inter- 
rupted. At different times I have lost the evi- 
dence of my sanctification. Sanctification, like 
justification, is easily lost. When this rich bless- 
ing has unconsciously slipped away, or when the 
enemy has come in like a flood and for a mo- 
ment overwhelmed me, and I have felt that the 
priceless boon was gone, there has been one 
promise that has come to me as an inspiration; 
it is a wonderful promise ; it is like a blazing star 
amid surrounding darkness: "If any man sin, 
we have an advocate with the Father." (i John 
ii, I.) No language can describe the sweetness 
of that precious promise. "If any man sin," 
whether he be an unconverted man, or a regen- 
erated man, or a man walking upon the high- 
way of holiness — "If any man sin." That prom- 
ise is for me. It takes me in, as it takes in every 
other person living. Although I may have fallen 
from the highest plane of religious experience, 
that promise is for me ; it comes to me, I claim 
it. I have an advocate with the Father. Then 
right in connection with this is that other most 
precious promise, "If we confess our sins, he is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins." 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 145 

Conscious that I have, wittingly or unwit- 
tingly, sinned, and that the blessing is gone, the 
very moment I have confessed my sin and have 
trusted in Jesus Christ, that very moment I have 
been restored to the full favor of God. 

And now, after an experience of more than 
twenty years in t'he light of holiness, I am per- 
mitted to say, and I say it to the praise and 
glory of God, that the way is brighter, the joy 
richer, the peace sweeter, the heavenly attrac- 
tions stronger than ever. 

There is not gold enough in all the moun- 
tains, nor pearls enough in all the oceans, nor 
diamonds enough in all the mines, nor honors 
enough in all the kingdoms and empires of the 
world, to buy from me the priceless jewel of 

perfect love. 
10 



CHAPTER IX 

Pleasure Versus Duty 

There is so much of the human about all of 
us, that if our religion does not give us more 
joy than the world gives, the service of Christ 
will not be to us, on the whole, desirable. And 
if it is not a real pleasure, then the world, instead 
of Christ, will get the greater part of our service. 

If we have all God has for us, we shall never 
have occasion to offer the prayer breathed forth 
by the poet in the couplet : 

" O, may not duty seem a load, 
Or worsliip prove a task !'* 

God intends that obedience to him shall be a 
delight, and worship a real joy. David found it 
to be so. 

" I delight to do thy will, O my God." 

"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us 

go into the house of the Lord." "I had rather 

be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than 

to dwell in the tents of wickedness." "One thing 

have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; 

146 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 147 

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all 
the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the 
Lord, and to inquire in his temple." 

All these expressions show that the service 
of God to David was a very delightful service. 

There are two classes of Christians in the 
world. One class obey God because it is a duty 
to do so; the other class obey God because it 
is a pleasure. One class serve God, attend all 
the means of grace, public and private, because 
they want to get to heaven when they die; the 
other class do all these things, because it is the 
very joy of their life to do them. What makes 
this difference? It is this. One class has, pos- 
sibly, spiritual life ; the other has it "more abun- 
dantly." One class are babes in Christ such as 
Paul describes in i Corinthians iii, i ; the other 
class have cast off their swaddling clothes, and 
have become stalwart men and women in Christ 
Jesus. 

Get the fullness of the blessing of the gospel 
of Christ, and the service of God will no longer 
be irksome, but a real joy. Then with Christ 
you can say, "I delight to do thy will, O my 
Godr 



148 Perfect Happmess 

At the Bennett Camp-meeting for the pro- 
motion of holiness in 1876, Brother Laube, of 
Iowa, was present, and he gave his experience, 
which was, in substance, as follows: 

"For many vears I had been a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. I was a steward, 
trustee, and class-leader. I was faithful in at- 
tending all the means of grace, and gave liberally 
for the support of the gospel. I did all these 
things, because I felt it was my duty. I prayed 
in secret, read my Bible daily, had family prayer, 
discharged my duty as trustee, steward, and 
class-leader, and paid the preacher, because I 
wanted to get to heaven when I died. A few 
years ago, returning from Chicago, where I had 
been to lay in a stock of goods, I stopped a few 
hours at Cedar Rapids, where the National Holi- 
ness Association was holding a camp-meeting. 
Up to this time I had been greatly prejudiced 
against the doctrine of holiness. I listened to 
J. S. Inskip, William ^McDonald, and others, 
with the deepest interest. And as they spoke of 
the joy and real pleasure the service of God gave 
them, I felt that they had an experience that I 
did not have, and I went to my home feeling 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 149 

that I would like to have just what they had. 
The next morning I awoke my wife at four 
o'clock, and said, 'Suppose we go to the camp- 
meeting at Cedar Rapids to-day?' She was 
greatly surprised, but readily consented. At six 
o'clock we were in the coach, and on our way 
to Cedar Rapids. Early in the day we reached 
the ground, and at the first invitation we were 
both down in the straw at the altar seeking holi- 
ness. We had been at the altar but a few 
moments when God powerfully sanctified us 
both. 

''Now," said he, "I pray in secret, read my 
Bible, have family prayer, attend all the means 
of grace, pay the preacher, and give of my means 
for benevolent purposes, because it is a real 
pleasure. I came to this meeting that I might 
have the pleasure of enjoying these services, and 
of giving something to aid you in your good 
work." And he gave us forty dollars to help 
defray the expenses of that meeting. 

Is not Brother Laube's experience the expe- 
rience of thousands? Thousands serve God be- 
cause they want to get to heaven when they die ; 
other thousands serve God because it is a pl^as- 



150 Perfect Happiness 

ure. How much easier it is to serve God when 
it is a pleasure than when it is a duty ! 

If worldliness is ever driven out of the 
Churches, and heavenly attractions become 
more potent than earthly ones, the Churches 
must get something better than the world can 
give. And God has it. He has it for every one, 
and every one may have it simply for the asking. 
"Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be 
full." (John xvi, 24.) 

There are two different ways of resisting 
temptation. One is by the direct exercise of 
the will power. If the will is very strong, victory 
will be the result. If the will is weak, defeat fol- 
lows. The other method is by getting some- 
thing better than that which the Tempter offers 
you. When the Holy Ghost comes into your 
heart as the sanctifier, he works a complete revo- 
lution in your delights. Then let the tempter 
ask you to spend an evening at cards, in the ball- 
room, or at the theater, and there will be no 
desire at all to yield. You have something in- 
finitely better than these wishy-washy things. 

God took the desire for these things entirely 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 151 

away from me when he converted my soul ; and 
from that day to the present there has not been 
the slightest trend in that direction. I suppose, 
however, that there are persons who have been 
converted, and are m. the Church, who feel dif- 
ferently. And yet I am inclined to the opinion 
that if they really relish worldly amusements, 
they have certainly lost their first love. 

One thing is sure, when the Holy Ghost 
comes into the heart in his fullness all these 
things will appear as chaff compared to the 
riches of grace that fill to the brim the soul with 
a joy that is unspeakable. 

" O how the thought of God attracts, 
And draws the heart from earth, 
And sickens it of passing shows, 
And dissipating mirth ! 

O, utter but the name of God 
Down in your heart of hearts. 

And see how from the world at once 
All tempting light departs !" 

Babes must be amused with rattle-boxes; 
little children with tops, dolls, and toys. But 
men and women have outgrown these. Paul 
says: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, 



153 Perfect Happiness 

I understood as a child, I thought as a child; 
but when I became a man, I put away childish 
things." (i Corinthians xiii, 11.) 

The persons who take pleasure in the shilly- 
shally amusements of the world are to be pitied, 
not envied — pitied, not scolded. They are in 
their swaddling clothes, and must have their 
playthings. O, how many babes there are in 
all the Churches! The fully-saved soul has a 
joy that these persons never dreamed of. Our 
only safety is in having a fountain of joy opened 
up in our hearts, so sweet, so full, so lasting, as 
to extinguish utterly all base delights. On this 
point Dr. Daniel Steele furnishes a good illus- 
tration : 

"In the days of my boyhood, when a barrel 
of cider in the cellar of the farmer was deemed 
a necessary of life, one of my neighbors com- 
plained that, in consequence of the bibulous pro- 
pensity of some one in his house, he could keep 
no cider in his cellar. A friend well versed in 
human nature suggested Franklin's remedy as a 
sure cure of the evil. The complaining farmer 
was told that his cider would remain untouched 
if he would place a barrel of wine beside it. Here 



Perfect Happmess Experienced 153 

is an unfailing prescription for the soul prone 
towards the shallow, green-scummed pools of 
sensual gratification. Let him by faith place 
nearer to his heart the wine of God, the joy of 
the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, having tasted 
which he will never thirst again for worldly 
pleasure." 

The Doctor gives also a classical illustration : 
'*In the wanderings of Ulysses after the tak- 
ing of Troy, the wind drove his ship near to the 
island of the Sirens, somewhere near the west 
coast of Italy. These enchantresses were fabled 
to have the power of charming by their song 
any one who heard them, so that he died in an 
ecstasy of delight. When the ships of Ulysses 
approached these deadly charmers sitting on the 
lovely beach, endeavoring to lure him and his 
crew to destruction, he filled the ears of his 
companions with wax, and with a rope tied 
himself to the mast, until he was so far off that 
he could no longer hear their song. By this 
painful process they escaped. 

"But when the Argonauts, in pursuit of the 
golden fleece, passed by the Sirens singing with 
entrancing sweetness, Jason, instead of binding 



154 Perfect Happiness 



himself to the mast and stuffiing the ears of his 
men with wax, commanded Orpheus, who was 
on board the ship, to strike his lyre. His song 
so surpassed in sweetness that of the charmers, 
that their music seemed harsh discord. The 
Sirens, seeing them sail by unmoved, threw 
themselves into the sea, and were metamor- 
phosed into rocks. They had been conquered 
with their own weapons. Melody had surpassed 
melody. Here is set forth the secret of the 
Christian's triumph. Joy must conquer joy. 
The joy of the Holy Ghost in the heart must 
surpass all the pleasures of sense. When all 
heaven is warbling in the believer's ear, the whis- 
pers of the tempter grate upon the purified sensi- 
bilities as saw-filing rasps the nerves. 

" 'The joy of the Lord Is your strength' to 
resist sin, as well as to endure toil. F'ullness of 
joy is the Christian's impervious shield. Christ 
has such a shield for every believer. *Ask and 
receive, that your joy may be full.' Some peo- 
ple, by affecting contempt for joy, proclaim 
themselves wiser than the Master. The truth is, 
that no soul is intrenched in its bomb-proof till 
it is filled with God, with love, with joy. For 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 155 

these three are a trinity in unity. Every soul 
having the fullness of God has the fullness of joy; 
not always the gladness of realization, ecstatic 
and rapturous, but 'the joy of faith' — a high, 
serene tranquillity, often bursting out into exul- 
tation because of the gladsome emotions actually 
realized. (Phil, i, 25.) The kingdom of God 
is not fully set up in the soul till the joy of the 
Holy Ghost crowns both righteousness, or justi- 
fication, and peace. (Romans xiv, 17.) 

''There once lived in an old brown cottage a 
solitary woman. She was some thirty years of 
age, tended her little garden, and knit and spun 
for a living. She was known everywhere, from 
village to village, by the name of 'Happy Nancy.' 
She had no money, no family, no relatives ; and 
was half-blind, quite lame, and very crooked. 
There was no comeliness in her, and yet there, 
in that homely, deformed body, the great God, 
who loves to bring strength out of weakness, 
had set his royal seal. 

" 'Well, Nancy, singing again?' would the 
chance visitor say, as he stopped at her door. 
'O yes, I am forever at it.' 
'I wish you 'd tell me your secret, Nancy. 



(( <i 



a i^ 



156 Perfect Happiness 

You are all alone, you work hard, you have 
nothing very pleasant surrounding you; what is 
the reason you 're so happy?' 

" 'Perhaps it 's because I have n't got any- 
body but God,' she replied, looking up. 'You 
see rich folks, like you, depend upon their fam- 
ilies and their houses : they 've got to thinking 
of their business, of their wives and children, and 
then they 're always mighty afraid of troubles 
ahead; I hain't got anything to trouble myself 
about, you see, 'cause I leave it all to the L/ord. 
I think, Well, if he can keep this great world in 
such good order, the sun rolling day after day, 
and the stars shining night after night, make 
my garden things come up the same, season after 
season, he can sartingly take care of such a poor, 
simple thing as I am; and so you see, I leave it 
all to the Lord, and the Lord takes care of me.' 

" Well, but, Nancy, suppose a frost should 
come after your fruit-trees are all in blossom 
and your plants out — suppose — ' 

" *But I do n't suppose; I never can suppose; 
I do n't want to suppose, except that the Lord 
will do everything right. That 's what makes 
you people unhappy ; you 're all the time sup- 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 157 

posing. Now, why can't you wait till the sup- 
pose time comes, as I do, and then make the 
best of it?' 

" 'Ah ! Nancy, it 's pretty certain you '11 get 
to heaven, while many of us, with all our worldly 
wisdom, will have to stay out.' 

*' 'There, you are at it again,' said Nancy, 
shaking her head, 'always looking out for some 
black cloud. Why, if I was you, I 'd keep Satan 
at arm's length, instead of taking him right into 
my heart — he '11 do you a desperate sight of 
mischief.' " 

Triumphant is the Christian that follows the 
example of Happy Nancy. 

When we consecrate ourselves completely to 
God, or, in other words, when we abandon our- 
selves wholly to him, and trust Christ without a 
lingering doubt for perfect deliverance from all 
sin, then the Holy Ghost comes into our hearts 
to abide. And when he comes as an abiding 
guest, he imparts to the soul a richness, a sweet- 
ness, a perennial joy, in comparison with which 
all the pleasures of the world are as chaff, as the 
husks the prodigal and the swine fed upon. 

Now, let the reader turn to three precious 



158 Perfect Happiness 

promises of our Savior lying right along on this 
line. 

The first was given to the disciples, when he 
and they were alone on one of the mountains of 
Galilee, just after his resurrection. Coupled 
with the great commission to preach the gospel 
to every creature was the soul-inspiring prom- 
ise — the promise that has been heard rolling 
down the ages, the promise that rings with de- 
light to-day in the ear of every trusting child of 
God, '%o, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world." (Matthew xxviii, 20.) 

That precious promise has come to us as a 
mighty inspiration hundreds of times. 

As we have gone into the closet to pray, we 
have heard the Master say, "I am with you." 
As we have bowed at the family altar, as we 
have gone to the bedside of the sick, as we have 
tried to comfort the dying, as we have laid our 
head upon the pillow at night, as we awoke in 
the morning, as we have sat down in the study 
to prepare for the Sabbath, as we have gone into 
the pulpit to stand between the living and the 
dead, we have heard the sweet voice of the Mas- 
ter saying, 'Xo, I am with you ;" and there has 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 159 



come to us an inspiration, grander and sweeter 
and more uplifting than any language can pos- 
sibly describe. 

"How full of meaning is that present tense! 
It is not that he was with us, or will he with us ; 
but that he is with us. We may not always see 
him, or realize his presence; we may be blinded 
by our tears, or dazzled with the false glare of 
this evil world ; we may even, like the Lord him- 
self in moments of crushing sorrow, reckon our- 
selves forsaken, and cry out for fear, like startled 
babes in the dark, who do not know that their 
mother is sitting by their side; or, like silly chil- 
dren, we may look for our Friend through 
a reversed telescope, removing him to an infinite 
distance by our way of regarding him. But all 
this will not alter the fact that he is with us, pity- 
ing us, yearning over us, and awaiting the mo- 
ment when, by a gesture — as to the two at Em- 
maus — or by the tone of his voice — as to Mary 
weeping by the empty grave — he may make us 
start with the glad consciousness that he is near. 
That day never comes when the Lord Jesus is 
not at the side of his saints."* 

*The Present Tenses, F. B. Meyer, page ir. 



i6o Perfect Happiness 



Then turn to that other promise of Christ, 
''I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you 
forever." (John xiv, i6.) 

This promise is for every trusting child of 
God down to the end of time. It is not only for 
the minister of the gospel, but for every father, 
and every mother, and every child. 

"He shall abide with you forever." He shall 
be with you, not only when you pray, not only 
when in the house of God on the Sabbath-day, 
but he shall be with you in your store, in your 
shop, in your oflice, in your schoolroom; he 
shall be with you as you walk the streets, or 
travel upon the public highway ; he shall be with 
you on your farm, in your parlor, in your 
kitchen, in the sick-room, by the coffin, and by 
the grave of loved ones. In ever}' station in life, 
in ever}^ trial, in every sorrow, the Holy Ghost 
will be present to comfort, to cheer, and to in- 
spire. 

A sister with whom we are well acquainted, 
and who knows more of the deep things of God 
than any one with whom we ever conversed, 
but whose earthlv life has been full of the bitter- 



Perfect Happiness Experienced i6l 

est sorrows, said to us, "I feel that I am within 
a little circle, and that God is all around me, and 
I am perfectly safe." 

Then turn over to Revelation iii, 20 : ^'Behold, 
I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear 
my voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with me/* 
Christ is not only to be with us everywhere to 
comfort, cheer, and inspire, but he is to be with 
us to feed and perfectly satisfy all our cravings. 
He feeds us with the bread of life. He gives us 
to drink of the waters of life that Saint John the 
divine saw proceeding from underneath the 
throne of God. (Revelation xxii, i.) And with 
our thirst slaked, and our hunger satisfied, we 
have imparted to us a divine strength that en- 
ables us to rise above every evil and every 
sorrow. 

The sanctified soul has two wings. One is 
unconditional and eternal dedication to God; 
the other is implicit faith in Jesus, "the mighty 
to save." 

"A friend once illustrated to me the differ- 
ence between three of her friends in the follow- 
ing way. She said, if they should all three come 
II 



1 62 Perfect Happi7iess 

to a spiritual mountain which had to be crossed, 
the first one would tunnel through it with hard 
and wearisome labor ; the second would meander 
around it in an indefinite way, hardly knowing 
where she was going, and yet, because her aim 
was right, getting around it at last; but the 
third, she said, would just flap her wings, and 
fly right over."* 

How many Christians have tunneled through 
the spiritual mountains that rise up before them ! 
How many have meandered, by a long and pain- 
ful journey, around them ! A few, however, have 
''just flapped their wings, and flown right over 
them." 

Reader, have you the two wings, consecra- 
tion and trust? If you ha\'^, you may mount 
up, soar aloft, and with ease cross every moun- 
tain of trial that may rise before you along the 
pathway of life. 

A friend of mine once stood upon one of the 
loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains — one of 
those mountain summits towering far above the 
clouds, and bathing its snow-crowned top in per- 

* Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, page 243. 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 163 

petual sunshine. Just below him he saw the 
dark cloud, so solid that it seemed he could with 
perfect safety step right out and walk upon it. 
A fearful storm was raging below. He heard the 
thunder, and saw the vivid lightnings flash. 
Presently he saw a dark object rising up. Up 
and up it rose, when at length he saw a great 
eagle pushing his head through the dark cloud, 
and coming up out of the gloom wet with the 
storm that was raging beneath; and as he rose 
into the clear sunlight, the drops of water like 
a thousand flashing diamonds rolled from his 
feathers. Then circling round above round, 
higher and higher he rose, and passing far be- 
yond that mountain summit basked amid the 
blazing splendors of the noonday sun. And as 
he gazed upon that mighty bird of the skies, 
with his spread pinions reflecting every ray of 
the sun, he seemed ''a thing of beauty." 

So we read in the Word, "They that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles." (Isaiah 

xl, 3I-) 

O reader, spread your wings of consecration 



164 Perfect Happiness 

and faith, then you may pass up into a heavenly 
atmosphere, and, bathing your enraptured soul 
in the eternal sunshine of God, you will be able 
to say with Christ, "I delight to do thy will, O 
my God r 



CHAPTER X 



The Palace of Perfect Peace 



There is a beautiful palace. It is beautifully 
located; its surroundings are enchanting, its 
furniture is rich beyond measure; the scenery in 
and around it is simply marvelous. The land- 
scapes, the fountains, the lawns, the shrubbery, 
the flowers, — all are charmingly delightful. The 
occupant of that palace is perfectly happy. He 
has no doubts, no fears, no anxiety. His coun- 
tenance is serene, his heart is at rest; the future 
is all bright and glorious. 

Where is that palace? Who is its occupant? 
Isaiah tells us, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because 
he trusteth in thee." 

That palace, therefore, is the palace of perfect 
peace. Its occupant is the fully saved soul. 
"Perfect peace." Wonderful words! "Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace." More wonder- 
ful still ! 

In this palace every member of Christ's mili- 

165 



1 66 Perfect Happiness 

tant Church may dwell. The simple condition 
of our dwelling in this palace is faith. ''Because 
he trust eth to thee.'' God will keep you in this 
palace, if you only trust him. 

In order to trust God perfectly, it is necessary 
to have a solid foundation on which to base our 
trust; and certainly we have such a foundation 
placed before us in God's Word. 

God is revealed to us as ''Our Father^ Look 
upon God, then, as your Father. Keep the 
Fatherhood of God ever before you. Never lose 
sight of that great fact. "Like as a father pitieth 
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
him." (Psalm ciii, 13.) 

How many tender and hallowed associations 
cluster around the name of father! "Like as 
a father pitieth his children." 

A gray-headed and pious father had a very 
wicked son. The old man had often prayed and 
wrestled with God on his behalf. But he be- 
came worse and worse. Never did the father 
close his door against him. One day one of the 
father's neighbors addressed him with consider- 
able severity, saying: "Why harbor that repro- 
bate son of yours? Why do n't you turn him 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 167 



out of doors, and banish him from your house?" 
"Ay, ay," said the aged saint, his gray locks 
trembling with emotion, "you can all turn him 
out of doors but his own father." A father's 
love. How strong it is ! It never lets go its hold. 

More than that gray-haired father loved his 
boy, God loves you. If that be true, and we 
know it is, can you not trust him constantly and 
perfectly? 

David knew from experience what a father's 
love was; what a father's pity was. He loved 
Absalom only as a father can love his own child. 
And although that son had conspired against 
his father's life and against his father's kingdom, 
still that father loved him, was ready to protect 
him, and, if necessary, die for him. 

On the eve of the battle David said to Joab 
and the officers of his army, ''Deal gently, for 
my sake, with the young man, even with Absa- 
lom." (2 Samuel xviii, 5.) 

The battle began. It waged hotter and hot- 
ter. In the city gate sat the old king, watching 
and waiting for tidings from the field. On the 
watch-tower above the gate stood the watch- 
man. On the result of that battle was suspended 



1 68 Perfect Happiness 

the king's life and the king's throne. But David 
was not thinking of these. He was not thinking 
of himself, nor of his throne, nor of his empire. 
He was thinking only of his boy. The watch- 
man cried out to the king, "A courier cometh." 
On and on the courier came, nearer and nearer 
he approached, and on reaching the gate the 
very first question the king asked was, ''Is the 
young man Absalom safe?" Then another 
courier was seen coming, running at full speed, 
and, reaching the gate, the same question was 
asked by the excited king, "Is the young man 
Absalom safe?" And when told that Absalom's 
army had been defeated and Absalom himself 
slain, the king did not rejoice. But going up 
into his chamber he wept, and cried out in bitter 
lamentations : "O my son Absalom, my son, my 
son Absalom ! Would God I had died for thee, 
O Absalom, my son, my son!" 

That pathetic scene tells of the tender and 
unchanging love of a father. 

Infinitely more tender and constant than was 
David's love for Absalom is God's love for you. 
What a foundation is here given on which to 
base your trust in God! 



Perfect Happiness Experieitced 169 



"Walking down one of the streets of a large 
city/' said a friend, "I saw a little blind boy 
standing on the sidewalk, with his head bent 
forward as if eagerly listening. Stepping up to 
him, I said, 'Shall I help you across the street, 
my little friend?' 

**0 no, thank you; I am waiting for my 
father." 

"Can you trust your father?" 

"O yes ; my father always takes good care of 
me, leads me all the time, and when he has my 
hand I feel perfectly safe." 

"But why do you feel safe?" 

Raising his sightless eyes, with a sweet smile 
and a look of perfect trust, he replied: "O, be- 
cause my father knows the way! He can see; 
but I am blind." 

Our Heavenly Father knows the way, and 
we ought to trust him to lead us. 

Sometimes your pathway may seem hedged 
and the way all dark, so that you hardly know 
what to do, or which way to turn. In such an 
hour just put your hand in God's hand, and trust 
him. He knows the way, and will lead you out 
of the gloom into the sunshine. He will make 



170 Perfect Happmess 



the darkness light, and the rough places smooth. 

When your child has done wrong, and comes 
to you and says, 'Ta, I am sorry I did so," how 
quick you are to forgive and fold the sorrowing 
child in your arms ! Is God less forgiving in his 
nature? Do n't doubt his love. 

God's paternal love is clearly and strikingly 
brought out in Matthew vii, 11: "If ye then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
your children, how much more shall your Father 
which is in heaven give good things to them 
that ask him !" 

Parents love to give good things unto their 
children. This is their delight. Much more, 
God loves to give good things to those who 
trust him. God yearns over every one of his 
children with a tenderness infinitely greater than 
any earthly parent ever yearned over his child. 

A king was sitting with his council deliber- 
ating on high afifairs of state involving the des- 
tiny of nations, when suddenly he heard the cry 
of his little child, who had become frightened 
at a wasp that was near by. The king arose, 
left the council, hurried away to the frightened 
child, drove away the wasp, and taking the little 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 171 

one in his arms comforted her, then returned to 
his council. That is just hke a father. 

The King of kings has a love for his children 
infinitely greater than that earthly king had for 
his child, and he is ready and willing and anxious 
to come to our assistance even in the smallest 
and most insignificant matters. 

Now, if we can only get Christians to see this, 
how easy it will be for them to trust God im- 
plicitly! And trusting God perfectly, there will 
come into their hearts the abiding peace that 
passeth all understanding. 

It is said that there is no love like a mother's 
love. A mother loves on, and loves ever. The 
thought of a mother's love has been an inspira- 
tion to many a child. The thought of a mo- 
ther's love and a mother's prayers has come as 
an angel of mercy to many a boy in sorrow. 

On the bloody field of battle a noble youth 
lay dying. His mind was wandering. His spirit 
was no longer on the bloody field; it was at his 
home far away. A sweet smile passed over his 
face, as he looked up and said: ''O mother! O 
mother ! I am so glad you have come !" And it 
seemed that she was there by his side. By and 



172 Perfect Happiness 

by he said again : ''It is cold ! it is cold ! Won't 
you pull the blanket over me?" His comrade 
pulled the ragged blanket close to his shivering 
form. And he smiled again, as he said, "That 
will do, mother; that will do." And turning 
over, he passed sweetly into rest, and was borne 
up to the presence of God on the wings of a 
pious mother's prayers. "All others have for- 
saken me; but my mother loves me still," has 
been the language of many a fallen child. And 
faith in that mother's love has brought back the 
wandering one. Would you see God's love 
towering infinitely above all parental love, turn 
to Isaiah Ixix, 15, and read: "Can a woman for- 
get her child? They may forget, yet will I never 
forget thee." 

"I will never forget thee." Wonderful words ! 
And they are the words of "Our Father." 

During the great Chicago fire a mother 
looked out, and was surprised to find that the 
whole block in which she lived was on fire, and 
that her own dwelling was already in flames. 
Taking her little girl she ran out; but on reach- 
ing the gate she remembered that she had left 
her pocket-book in the house. She ran back to 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 173 

get it, and while she was gone the surging 
crowd, fleeing before the fire, drove the Httle 
child along with the resistless throng, and she 
was separated from her mother. Burning 
shingles and boards were flying through the air, 
and falling here and there among the frightened 
multitudes. To escape the falling firebrands, 
the little girl took shelter in a lumber-yard. She 
was soon driven from this; then she fled to an 
empty building. But the fire soon reached this, 
and she was compelled to leave. A policeman 
found her, took her to his own home, and his 
wife took care of her for two days. 

The mother, coming out and finding that her 
child was gone, was almost frantic with grief. 
All night long she wandered through the streets 
in search of her child, and all next day and all 
next night. She forgot all about her home that 
she had left in flames. She thought only of her 
lost child. On the third day, in front of Cente- 
nary Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop Fow- 
ler saw that mother meet her child. She threw 
her arms around the child, and the child threw 
lier arms around the mother's neck, and locked 
in each other's embrace they remained for some 



174 Perfect Happiness 

moments, and then the mother kissed the child 
over and over again. "Such an affecting scene," 
said the bishop, ''I never witnessed in all my life 
before." O, a mother's love! Who can de- 
scribe it? 

And yet God tells us that his love for us is 
greater than that. 

Infinitely more than that mother wanted her 
child, God wants you. Infinitely more than that 
mother loved her child, God loves you. Infi- 
nitely more anxious and concerned than that 
mother was about her daughter, God is anxious 
and concerned about you. Remember this; re- 
member it all the time, by day and by night ; and 
keeping this great and glorious fact always be- 
fore you, it seems to me that you will be able 
to trust God perfectly, and trusting him per- 
fectly, this peace, like a river — this peace that 
passeth all understanding — will fill and overflow 
your whole soul. 



CHAPTER XI 

Our Burden-Bearer 

Among the many exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises found crowding every part of the 
Divine Word, not the least by any means is the 
soul-uplifting promise that Christ will carry all 
our burdens for us. 

Although the promises touching this matter 
are positive and emphatic, but few have learned 
the art of letting Christ do this great work for 
them. They cling to their burdens with a tena- 
cious grasp; they hold on to them, as it were, 
with a death grip. They continue to bend be- 
neath the crushing load, although Christ is 
standing right beside them, saying all the while, 
"I will take that load and carry it for you." But 
they refuse, and go on sweating and groaning 
beneath the mighty load. 

Why not let Christ carry your burdens? He 
will do it. He is ready, he is willing, he is anx- 
ious to carry them all. "Casting all your care 
upon him ; for he careth for you." (i Peter v, 7.) 

Whatever concerns the follower of God, whether 

175 



176 Perfect Happiness 

it be temporal or spiritual, great or small, con- 
cerns God. "In all our afflictions he is afflicted." 
If God thus cares for you, you need have no 
anxious care for yourself. "Cast thy burden 
upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." 
(Psalm Iv, 22?) 

What a wonderful promise is this! Do we 
believe it? If we do, we will let Christ carry us, 
and our burdens, too. 

A man was walking along the public high- 
way bearing a heavy load. A wagon overtook 
him, and the driver asked him to get in and ride. 
He joyfully accepted the kindly invitation, got 
in, and sat down upon the seat, but kept the 
heavy load upon his back. 

"Why do you not lay down your burden?" 
said the kind-hearted driver. 

"O," replied the man; "it is enough for you 
to carry me. I can't think of letting you carry 
my burden, too." 

Many Christians act just like that man. How 
many who have given themselves into the care 
and keeping of the Lord still continue to bend 
under their heavy burdens, when Christ is say- 
ing all the time, "I will carry them for you." 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 177 

"The active hand of faith must lay the burden 
on the shoulders of the strong Son of God." 

What are your burdens? No man or woman 
is living but who has them. And many feel that 
their burdens are so great that they will surely 
crush them. And many, yea thousands, are 
crushed beneath them, and die of broken hearts. 

Self is a great burden. With me it has been 
the hardest of all things to manage. If we can 
only learn the art of letting Christ take us and 
manage us, we have learned a great lesson. The 
wise thing to do, is to put yourself, with all your 
peculiarities, your feelings, your weaknesses, 
your temptations, — all these, and they are many 
and great, — into the hands of Christ, and let him 
manage them for you. Abandon yourself com- 
pletely to him. Then put your health, your busi- 
ness, your reputation, all your temporal and 
spiritual affairs into Christ's hands, and say, 
"Here, Lord, I can not manage these things; 
manage them for me." He will do it, and do it 
grandly, gloriously, and successfully, and you 
will spend no more sleepless nights over them. 

A minister of the gospel said: "I was carry- 
ing a load of care that none but He who made 



12 



178 Perfect Happiness 



the soul could carry. My face became care- 
worn, my heart faint and heavy. I was unfitted 
to teach the joyful news of salvation. My face 
did not reflect heaven's light. It belied my 
teaching. When the burden was about to crush 
me, I learned that Jesus bore it all. I ceased to 
do God's part. The precious promise came to 
me as an inspiration, 'Cast thy burden upon the 
Lord, and he shall sustain thee.' I obeyed. God 
took the load. Now I am free, and my cup of 
joy is full and running over." 

"We were reading the twenty-third Psalm," 
said a friend, "and we were talking together 
about the Good Shepherd, and how he takes 
care of the sheep and the little lambs, when little 
Mamy, eager to speak her one thought, said 
rapidly, "He feeds them, and .drives away the 
lions and the bears." 

"Yes," said Tiny, thoughtfully, "and he car- 
ries them up hill." 

"He carries them up hill!" 

"The words went to my heart with a strength 
and sweetness the little speaker did not dream 
of. Often since their music has thrilled through 
my tired soul like an echo of the angel's song." 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 179 

Up the steep hill of sorrow he will carry you. 
There are many steep and rugged hills to climb 
along the pathway of life. When you come to 
one of these hills, if you will only trust Jesus, he 
will take you up in his arms, and carry you and 
your burden over. 

"Father, I will leave the matter in your hands, 
and will give myself no further trouble about it." 

"Very well, I will attend to it." 

Thus spoke a dutiful son to a loving father. 
The matter alluded to was one which had caused 
the son great anxiety. The adjustment of it was 
within the father's power. The son was about 
to set out on a journey. He therefore very 
properly committed the matter into his father's 
hands. 

"My son," said a father, "I wish you to take 
this package to the river. Take it to the corner, 
and I will join you there, and help you to 
carry it." 

The son had a desire to go in another direc- 
tion. The request of his father interfered with 
his plans. He could not refuse to obey, but 
obeyed with a sullen spirit. He took the pack- 
age to the corner as directed. It was heavy, 



i8o Perfect Happiness 



and he bore it with great difficulty. When his 
father offered to take it, he held on to it, and 
said, "I can carry it alone." 

"You had better let me relieve you," said the 
kind father. 

"I can carry it alone," said the son. 

The father noticed the unpleasant tones of 
his voice, and thought it wise to let him bear 
his unnecessary burden. 

Not a few Christians seem to act toward God 
just as that son acted toward his father. God in 
his wise providence imposes burdens. He does 
not wish to have his people crushed under them. 
He offers to relieve them — to bear their burdens 
for them; but they often obstinately cling to 
them, and say they can bear them alone. Is it 
any wonder that God lets such bear their un- 
necessary burdens? 

Reader, there is no burden, nor care, nor sor- 
row, which Christ wishes you to bear alone. He 
wishes you to cast it on him; or if that be im- 
possible, he will share it with you. What a view 
this gives us of the love of Christ ! and what a 
view does our conduct in clinging to our bur- 



Perfect Happiness Experienced i8i 

dens and bearing our sorrows alone give us of 
our folly and sin! 

A godly man was the object of persecution 
and slander. His good name was taken away. 
Those who before treated him with confidence, 
shunned him. His burden was a heavy one. 
That which greatly increased the weight was the 
fact that his power for doing good was almost 
wholly destroyed. 

He entered upon no labored defense of his 
character. He suffered in silence, and prayed 
for his slanderers. He sought the sympathy of 
a few Christian friends, whose confidence in him 
could not be shaken. 

"I have not seen you for some time," said a 
friend, as they met. "You look better than when 
I saw you last." 

*'I am out of trouble," was the reply. "I have 
laid the matter down at the feet of the Lord, 
and said : Xord, I roll that trouble off upon thee; 
I '11 have nothing more to do with it.' " 

In so doing he obeyed the command, "Cast 
thy burden upon the Lord." The depression 
of sorrow was at once removed, and his energy 



1 82 Perfect Happiness 

revived for the service of God. We have no 
right to exhaust in burden-bearing the strength 
which ought to be employed in God's service, 
and yet how many of us have done this very 
thing! Well, let us do it no more. Roll your 
burdens off upon the Lord. He is our great 
burden-bearer. 

I heard a pastor say that he once had a 
parishioner whose husband was a drunkard. 
Often at the hour of midnight she would go 
down the street, enter the saloon, take her 
husband by the arm, lead him home, put him 
to bed, and nurse him till he was sober. But 
notwithstanding her great sorrow, she was one 
of the most faithful members he ever had. She 
was always at the prayer-meeting, and always 
had a new and rich experience to tell; and all 
were always edified and interested when she 
spoke. We all wondered at it, for we all knew 
something of her sore trials. In his pastoral 
visits she never once mentioned her sorrows, 
until the last visit he made, when incidentally 
she referred to them. ''Yes," said the pastor, 
"we have all known something of your great 
trials, and we have all wondered and wondered 



Perfect Happiness Experienced 183 

at your rich and glowing religious experience. 
Tell me about it." 

"Well," said the good sister, "many years ago 
I became convinced that my husband was headed 
toward a drunkard's grave. I felt that I could 
not possibly live with a drunken husband. And 
so I began earnestly to pray to God, and for a 
long time I prayed, almost night and day, for 
God to let me die. But God would n't let me 
die. Then I said : 'O Lord, if you won't let me 
die, you must take hold of me with both hands, 
hold on, and never let go.' And God answered 
that prayer. He took hold of me, held on, and 
has never let go." 

Reader, what God did for that toil-worn, sor- 
rowing sister, he will do for every one of his 
trusting children. "Cast thy burden upon the 
Lord, and he shall sustain thee." 



PART IV 

Perfe<5l Happiness Retained 



l8s 



CHAPTER XII 



Just as we Obtained it, so we Retain it 

It is one thing to become a Christian, and 
another thing to remain a Christian. It is one 
thing to be sanctified wholly, and another thing 
to remain in a wholly sanctified state. 

The wrecks of once happy Christians are 

seen scattered all over the waters of life. Of all 

the sad sights I ever saw, the saddest was that 

of a backslider; one who had gone up to the 

highest plane of religious experience, but had 

fallen, and was standing upon the very brink 

of hell, where it seemed that "the tramp of 

demon feet and the howl of demon voices could 

be heard." It was indeed a sad, sad sight. A 

saint of God fallen so low, that the stamp of the 

Evil One was seen on every lineament of his 
face ! 

"They fall deepest into hell who fall there 

backward." "The higher the trust, the deeper 

one is sunk by its betrayal. Arnold, the trusted 

187 



1 88 Perfect Happiness Retained 



general, became the arch-traitor." The nether- 
most hell is reserved for those who fall from the 
high plane of perfect love. 

We retain perfect salvation just as we ob- 
tained it in the beginning. "As ye have there- 
fore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye 
in him." (Col. ii, 6.) 

How did you receive Christ in his fullness? 
Was it not by perfect consecration and perfect 
faith? In the same way you will keep him in all 
his fullness. See to it, then, that your consecra- 
tion is kept perfect and your faith genuine. 
Do n't for one moment lose faith in God's love. 
At this point many become paralyzed. The 
enemy whispers: "God no longer loves you. 
The wrath of the Almighty is kindled against 
you;" and yielding to the whisperings of the 
tempter, they give up, and sink down in utter 
despair. 

When one has been walking for some time 
in full fellowship with Jesus, and the enemy 
comes upon him in an unguarded moment and 
gets the advantage of him, about the first 
thought that Satan flashes across his mind is, 
"God no longer loves me; God is angry with 



Perfect Happiness 



189 



me," and the blackness of despair settles down 
upon the soul. 

Now, if that thought were true, then the 
Bible would not be true. "Turn, O backsliding 
children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto 
you." (Jeremiah iii, 14.) 

If God is married unto the backslider, then 
certainly he has not lost his love for him. Love 
is the marriage bond. 

During a great revival in York a few years 
ago, a young lady came to me in the deepest 
mental agony, and said, "I am an awful back- 
slider; I am lost forever." I turned to the above 
passage of Scripture, and told her to read it. 
She did so. I said to her, "What does God say 
about the backslider?" 

She replied, "He says he is married to the 
backslider." 

"You are a backslider." 

"Yes." 

"What then?" 

"God is married to me." 

"What then?" 

"He must love me." 



190 Perfect Happiness Retained 

"If he loves you, do n't you think he wants 
to save you?" 

"I see it," said she, and in an instant her faith 
took hold on God, and she was fully restored, 
and her face beamed all over with heavenly rap- 
ture. 

The very moment the enemy gets the ad- 
vantage of you, that very moment repent, and 
call upon God for forgiveness and restoration, 
and in that very moment God will answer, for- 
give, and fully restore. Do n't for one moment 
believe that awful lie of Satan, that God no 
longer loves you. 

We should keep distinctly before the mind 
the great fact that God loves us. We want it 
indelibly stamped upon the heart, so that it never 
can be erased. We sometimes make a great 
mistake by thinking that we must do something 
to make God love us. We begin to look at 
ourselves ; at the little good we have done, at 
our infirmities, shortcomings, blunders, little- 
ness of faith, and with discouraged hearts we 
say, "God never can love such a weak, faithless, 
sinful, erring being as I am." How many make 



Perfect Happiness 191 

this mistake ! It is a snare of Satan to keep the 
pure one, who has made a misstep, from going 
back again to the loftiest heights of salvation. 

Two children were playing together, and one 
said to the other, "We must be good, or father 
won't love us." The father overheard the re- 
mark, and called the child to his side, and said 
to him: "Do you know what you have said? It 
is not true, my boy; not a bit of it." 

"Is n't it?" said the boy, surprised and 
doubtful. 

"No," said the father, "it's far from the 
truth." 

"But you won't love us if we are not good, 
will you?" said the boy. 

"Yes," said the father. "I can't help loving 
you. I shall love you for ever and ever, because 
I can't help it. When you are good, I love 
you with a love that makes me glad ; and when 
you are not good, I love you with a love that 
hurts me; but I can't help loving you, because 
I am your father." 

God loves us, and he can't help it, because 
he is our Father. Let this fact burn its way 
down into the very depths of the soul by the 



192 Perfect Happiness Retained 

Holy Spirit, and we shall be saved from this 
snare of the Evil One. 

"I am feeling lonely and depressed; but God 
loves me." "I am groping my way through 
darkness; but God loves me." ''I have fallen, 
and am no better than others; but God loves 
me." ''I am passing through a season of sore 
chastening; but this makes me only more sure 
that my Father loveth me."* O, this is the 
secret of victory, of rest, and of joy ! 

Says Hannah Whitall Smith : "A sudden fail- 
ure is no reason for being discouraged, and giv- 
ing up all as lost. Neither is the integrity of our 
doctrine touched by it. We are not preaching 
a state, but a walk. The highway of holiness is 
not a place, but a way. Sanctification is not a 
thing to be picked up at a certain stage of our 
experience, and forever after possessed; but it 
is a life to be lived day by day, and hour by hour. 
We may for a moment turn aside from a path; 
but the path is not obliterated by our wander- 
ing, and can be instantly regained. In this life 
of and walk of faith there may be momentary 
failures that, although very sad and greatly to 

♦ B. F. Meyer. 



Perfect Happiness 193 

be deplored, need not, if rightly met, disturb 
the attitude of the soul as to entire consecration 
and perfect trust, nor interrupt, for more than 
the passing moment, its happy communion with 
its Lord. The great point is in instant return 
to God.'' 

Many a young convert, shortly after con- 
version, has been overwhelmed by the enemy, 
and, instead of returning instantly to God for 
pardon and restoration, has drifted farther and 
farther away, until, finally losing all hope, has 
become a castaway. 

And many a believer, having entered the land 
of perfect love, breathed its balmy atmosphere, 
eaten its rich and luscious fruits, and felt the 
thrill of holy joy that every inhabitant of the 
land feels, has, shortly after entering in, met 
with disastrous defeat, and instead of instantly 
looking to God for restoration, has given up in 
utter despair. So the wrecks of not only justi- 
fied souls, but sanctified souls, are everywhere 
to be seen. 

One of the most overwhelming defeats the 

Israelites ever met with, was shortly after they 

entered Canaan. When the news of the disas- 
13 



194 Perfect Happiness Retained 

•- ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ . . — ■ -■■— — ■ ■ ^ ^ 

trous defeat reached the camp, "the hearts of the 
people melted, and became as water. And 
Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon 
his face." . . . "And Joshua said, O Lord, 
what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs 
before their enemies !" (Joshua vii, 5.) 

There w^as a cause for this defeat, and there 
is a cause for every defeat the Christian meets 
with in his heavenly journey. 

God said to Joshua, "Get thee up, Israel hath 
sinned." There was a secret sin in the camp, 
and that secret sin caused Israel's awful defeat. 

"There is an accursed thing in the midst of 
thee." "And until that accursed thing be re- 
moved ye can not stand before your enemies." 
"Every time you meet them you will go down." 

God commanded diligent search to be made, 
that the sin might be discovered and put away. 
Search began, and soon the evil was found. 

Achan's covetous eyes beheld the goodly 
Babylonish garment, the shekels of silver, and 
the wedge of gold. And seeing them, he de- 
sired them, took them, and hid them away in 
his tent. Mark in this the insidious approaches 
of sin. First the look, then the desire, then the 



Perfect Happiness 195 

act, then the concealment, and then the awful 
defeat. 

Satan tempts the believer to-day just as he 
did Achan of old. Our only safety is in resisting 
his first approach. 

As soon as Israel's sin was brought to light, 
and put away, God came to them as their 
deliverer, and they went on from victory to vic- 
tory. 

Many Christians, if they give way to the 
tempter and sin, feel as the little girl did. She 
asked an experienced Christian whether the 
Lord Jesus always forgave us our sins as soon 
as we asked him. 

*'Yes, of course he does," said the lady, deeply 
experienced in divine things. 

'Just as soon?" she repeated, doubtingly. 

'Yes, the very minute we ask he forgives us." 

Well," said the child, "I can't believe that. 
I should think he would make us feel sorry for 
two or three days first. And then I should think 
he would make us ask him a great many times, 
and in a very pretty way too, not just in com- 
mon talk. And I believe that is the way he does, 
and you need not try to make me think he for- 



<(• 



if 



n^ 



196 Perfect Happiness Retained 

gives me right at once, no matter what the Bible 
says." 

The very moment the enemy gets the ad- 
vantage of us, that very moment we should make 
confession, put away the secret sin, or whatever 
it may have been that caused defeat, and trust 
Jesus for restoration. 

A man walking upon the highway of holiness 
was suddenly overcome by the tempter. He had 
been so wondrously saved, and so wondrously 
kept, that he imagined he never could so sin. 
In an unguarded moment the enemy came upon 
him, he gave way, and treated a brother Chris- 
tian very unkindly. The joy that had for months 
thrilled his heart departed, the light that had 
flooded his soul was turned to midnight gloom. 
Despair took possession of his soul, and he gave 
himself up for lost. He spent three years in the 
most intense mental agony. At length his 
health gave way under the fearful strain. At 
the end of three years he opened his heart to 
a friend, spoke of his sin, and told of the sorrow 
it had caused him. 

''You sinned in that act," said his friend; 
"there is no doubt about it, and I do not want 



Perfect Happiness 



197 



you to excuse it. But have you never confessed 
it to the Lord, and asked him to forgive you?" 

"Confessed it!" he exclaimed; 'Vhy, it seems 
to me I have done nothing but confess it, and 
entreat God to forgive me, night and day, for 
all these three dreadful years." 

"And you have never believed he did for- 
give you?" 

"No," said the poor man; "how could I, for 
I never felt as if he did?" 

"But suppose he had said he forgave you, 
would not that have done as well as for you to 
feel it?" 

"O yes, if God said it ; of course, I would be- 
lieve it." 

"Very well; he does say so," said his friend. 
" 'If we confess our sins he is faithful and just 
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness.' (i John i, 9.) You have 
been all these three years confessing and con- 
fessing your sin, and all the while God's record 
has been declaring that he was faithful and just 
to forgive it and to cleanse you, and yet you 
have never once believed it. You have been 



19^ Perfect Happiiiess Retained 

making God a liar all this while by refusing to 
believe his record." 

The poor man saw as never before, and was 
dumb with amazement. 

He was requested to kneel down, confess his 
sin and unbelief, and claim, then and there, for- 
giveness, and present cleansing. He did so. 
The result w^as glorious. The light broke in, 
the darkness all vanished, and the unspeakable 
joy of a fully saved soul was again his. 

Confession of the wrong, renunciation of the 
wrong, faith in Jesus Christ as our restorer — 
these are the means of instant reclamation. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Purified, Then Tried 

God's method with his children here is found 
in Daniel, twelfth chapter and tenth verse: 
"Many shall be purified, and made white and 
tried." That is God's method — purified, made 
white, then tried. God will have a tried people. 
Job said, "When he hath tried me, I shall come 
forth as gold." (Job xxiii, lo.) When that 
which is called gold is placed in the hottest fire, 
if it is genuine, it will lose nothing of its quality, 
nor of its weight. If it went into the fire gold, 
it will come out gold. So Job : he went into the 
furnace of affliction an innocent, righteous man ; 
he came out the same. His character lost noth- 
ing of its purity, nor of its luster. This will be 
the result with every true Christian. His char- 
acter will shine, with even increasing luster, after 
having passed through the furnace of fire. 

David said, "Thou, O God, hast proved us; 

thou hast tried us as silver is tried." (Psalm 

Ixvi, ID.) Solomon says, "The fining pot is for 

199 



200 



Perfect Happiness Retained 



silver and the furnace for gold; but the Lord 
trieth the hearts." (Proverbs xvii, 3.) "I will 
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them 
as gold is tried ; they shall call on my name, and 
I will hear them." (Zechariah xiii, 9.) James 
says : "Blessed is the man that endureth tempta- 
tion; for when he is tried he shall receive the 
crown of life." (James i, 12.) He does not say, 
Blessed is the man that has temptation, but 
Blessed is the man that endures, that stands firm, 
is loyal to God during the fiery temptation. 
That man will at last receive a crown, before the 
beauty and splendor of which the crowns of the 
kings and emperors of earth will pale and sink 
into utter insignificance. 

"The storm tries the buildings, and discovers 
which is built upon a rock, and which upon the 
sands. The storm tries the pilot. The touch- 
stone tries the metal, whether it be gold or cop- 
per. The furnace tries the gold, whether it be 
pure or dross. So afflictions and persecutions 
try Christians." It is said that Napoleon once 
ordered a coat of mail. When the artisan com- 
pleted it, he delivered it to the emperor. The 
emperor ordered him to put it on himself. Then 



Perfect Happiness 



20I 



Napoleon drew his large navy revolver, and fired 
shot after shot at the man in the armor. It stood 
the severe test, and the artisan received from 
Napoleon a large reward. So if we stand the 
severe tests that will be applied to us here, great 
will be our reward hereafter. 

Real excellence is the result of endurance. 
The brightest and purest metals are those that 
have gone through the hottest fires. God says 
of his people, "I have chosen thee in the furnace 
of affiiction." (Isaiah xlviii, lo.) Some of the 
purest persons that walk the earth are those 
whose virtues have been put to the severest test. 
The brightest stars in the constellation of glory 
once had the keenest earthly pangs, and earth's 
darkest clouds settled down upon them. "These 
are they which came out of great tribulation, 
and have washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 
vii, 14.) And now they shine as stars of the first 
magnitude in glory. Paul says, "Whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every 
son whom he receiveth." (Hebrews xii, 6.) 
And in the eleventh verse he says : "No chasten- 
ing for the present seemeth to be joyous, but 



203 Perfect Happiness Retained 

grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the 
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which 
are exercised thereby." Every sorrow and every 
trial, however severe it may be, is sent in love. 



u 



I saw the young bride in her beauty and pride, 

Bedecked in her snowy array; 
And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek, 

And the future looked blooming and gay ; 
And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart 

At the shrine of terrestrial love ; 
And she anchored her hopes to this perishing earth, 

By the chain which her tenderness wove. 
But I saw, when those heart-strings were bleeding and 
torn, 

And the chain had been severed in two. 
She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief, 

And her bloom to the paleness of woe. 
But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart, 

And wiping the tears from her eyes ; 
And he strengthened the chain he had broken in twain, 

And fastened it firm to the skies. 
There had whispered a voice — 'twas the voice of her 

God,— 
I love thee, I love thee ! — pass under the rod ! 

I saw the young mother in tenderness bend 

O'er the couch of her slumbering boy ; 
And she kissed the soft lips as they murmured her 
name, 

While the dreamer lay smiling in joy. 
O ! sweet as the rosebud encircled with dew, 

"When its fragrance is flung on the air ; 
So bright and so fresh to the mother he seemed 

As he lay in his innocence there. 



Perfect Happiness '203 

But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely form, 

Pale as marble, and silent and cold. 
But paler and colder her beautiful boy. 

And the tale of her sorrow was told. 
But the Healer was there, who had smitten her heart. 

And taken her treasure away ; 
To allure her to heaven, He had placed it on high. 

And the mourner will sweetly obey. 
There had whispered a voice — 'twas the voice of her 

God,— 
I love thee, I love thee! — pass under the rod! 

I saw where a father and mother had leaned 

On the arms of a dear cherished son ; 
And the star in the future grew bright in their gaze 

As they saw the proud place he had won ; 
And the fast-coming evening of life promised fair. 

And its pathway grew smooth to their feet ; 
And the starlight of love glimmered bright at the end. 

And the whispers of fancy were sweet. 
But I saw when they stood bending low o'er the grave, 

"Where their hearts' dearest hope had been laid ; 
And the star had gone down in the darkness of night. 

And joy from their bosoms had fied. 
But the Healer was there, and his arms were around, 

And he led them with tenderest care; 
And he showed them a star in the bright upper world, 

'T was their star shining brilliantly there ! 
They had each heard a voice — 't was the voice of their 

God,— 
I love thee, I love thee ! — pass under the rod !" 



CHAPTER XIV 

Temptation 

The highest state of grace possible in this life 
will not exempt us from temptation. If you ex- 
pect to be saved from temptation here, you are 
expecting something you will never realize. 
The servant is not greater than his Lord. If it 
were possible for us to reach a point where we 
could not be tempted, we should be greater than 
our Lord was. ''He was tempted in all points 
like as we are, yet without sin." It is no sin to 
be tempted. The sin lies in our yielding to the 
temptation. 

Here on earth is the battle-field ; here we are 
waging a warfare. Can there be war without 
conflict? Can there be conflict without ene- 
mies? Of all persons on earth, those who are 
most holy are the most exposed to temptation. 
Those who are the most holy are placed in the 
front of the battle. God has chosen them as his 
vanguard. They are the ones who make assaults 

upon the enemy. If they are in the front, and 

204 



Perfect Happiness 205 



lead in the charge, they are, more than any 
others, exposed to the fiery missiles of the foe. 
At the pure, Satan will hurl his sharpest arrows. 
Against them he will level his heaviest artillery. 
One holy person overcome and cast down is bet- 
ter for the empire of Satan than the fall of a 
hundred ordinary Christians. 

A noble saint of God, now in heaven, once 
said: "As certain as night follows day, so cer- 
tain will the black angel persecution follow holi- 
ness." A man who had recently come into the 
experience of perfect love, under the ministra- 
tions of Rev. Mr. Caughey, the great evangelist, 
went to him and said : "I do not understand this. 
I never had such severe temptations in my life 
as I have had since I received this blessing." 

''O," said Mr. Caughey, ''that is not at all 
strange. It takes ten devils to watch you now, 
where it took only one when you were in a weak 
and sickly state." 

As a rule, the less religion Christians have, 
the less trouble they have with Satan. Satan is 
satisfied with weak, worldly-minded Christians, 
and seldom troubles them. If we have no severe 



2o6 Perfect Happiness Retained 

temptations, we may well suspect the genuine- 
ness of our religion. 

The greater the effort put forth on the part 
of the Christian to live near God and save souls, 
the greater will be the effort on the part of Satan 
to hedge up his way and thwart all his com- 
mendable plans. Every step we take toward the 
throne of God will be hotly contested by the devil. 

It is said that a thief will not assault an empty 
house, but where he thinks there is a treasure; 
a pirate will not set upon an empty ship, but one 
that is full-fraught with spices and jewels; so the 
devil assaults the purest persons that walk the 
earth, because he knows they have a rich treas- 
ure of grace in their hearts, and he would rob 
them of their treasure. 

He knows that the pure are the most unre- 
lenting, untiring, and uncompromising enemies 
he has ; therefore he rallies all his forces, and puts 
forth every effort within his power to cast them 
down, in order that he may thereby save his own 
empire from wreck and ruin. The most severe 
and fiery trials are, after all, hopeful indications. 

Many a Christian, young in the experience 



Perfect Happiness 



207 



of perfect love, has been led to doubt his sancti- 
fication because of the awful temptations that 
have met him just after having entered the land 
of rest. 

At this point the enemy whispers to him : "If 
you were sanctified wholly, do you think you 
would have such temptations as these? You 
are very greatly mistaken if you imagine that 
you are sanctified." And, alas! many have be- 
lieved his lies, and cast away their confidence. 

But we should remember that the very power 
of our temptations may be one of the strongest 
proofs of our sanctiiication. They are tempta- 
tions peculiar to those who enjoy the rich experi- 
ence of perfect love. 

The Israelites in the wilderness had but few 
enemies to meet, and but few battles to fisfht, 
compared to those they encountered in the land 
of Canaan. When they entered Canaan they 
met giants such as they had never seen before; 
they had to take walled cities with fortifications 
and bulwarks towering almost to heaven. Seven 
great and powerful nations and thirty-one kings 
had to be conquered. 

So now, in the land of perfect love, there are 



2o8 Perfect Happiness Retained 

temptations more severe, and enemies more 
powerful than in a lower state of grace. And we 
should not be surprised at this. 

Then, Satan will whisper doubts, fears, pride, 
jealousies, and envyings, and then turn round 
and say: "How wicked you are, and what pre- 
sumption on your part to suppose that you are 
sanctified! If you were sanctified, it would be 
impossible for you to have such awful wicked 
thoughts." And many at this point, believing 
the enemy, have become discouraged. 

Whenever the enemy thus attacks, our only 
safety is in resenting his lying insinuations, and 
in looking by faith to Christ and in expecting 
instant victory. A simple resolution will not 
save us. Mere will-power alone will not give 
us the victory when assailed by the tempter. 
Our only hope of safety in the hour of peril is in 
Omnipotence. Human strength is not sufifi- 
cient to cope with the mighty powers of dark- 
ness. Relying upon our own strength, we shall 
fail — fail always. 

It was the proud boast of Pompey, that by 
one stamp of the foot he could summon all Italy 
to arms. 



Perfect Happiness 



209 



Greater influence and power than this has 
the trusting child of God. By one feeble cry 
for help he can summon all heaven to arms, and 
bring to his instant help the L,ord God Omnipo- 
tent. David gives us the key of victory. "I 
have set the Lord always before me ; because he 
is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." 
(Psalm xvi, 8.) 

"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from 
whence cometh my help. My help cometh from 
the Lord." (Psalm cxxi, i.) 

When assailed, call at once for Divine help. 
Never will God fail you. He has said, "Before 
they call I will answer, and while they are yet 
speaking I will hear." (Isaiah Ixv, 24.) 

First, then, "Think it not strange concerning 
the fiery trial which is to try you, as though 
some strange thing happened unto you." 
(i Peter iv, 12.) 

Second. Remember that if Jesus is by your 
side to defend you, you are safe. "Hell may be 
nigh, but Christ is nigher, encircling you with 
his hosts of fire." 



Z4 



CHAPTER XV 

Sins of Ignorance, Mistakes, and In- 
firmities, not Incompatible with the 
Highest State of Grace 

Some, in teaching the doctrine of sanctifica- 
tion, have placed the standard entirely too high, 
and by so doing have utterly discouraged many. 
They have put it on a plane far above the one 
on which the Scriptures place it, and hence have 
brought the doctrine into great disrepute. 

We believe that God has made provision for 
our complete deliverance from all sin, and for 
our being kept perfectly from all sin, all the time. 

While this is true, how many of those wholly 
sanctified are perfectly kept without a momentary 
break in this deep and rich experience? Not 
many. Satan is constantly injecting evil 
thoughts into the hearts of Christians. If the 
evil thought is not entertained for a moment, 
there is no sin. But if it is entertained for one 
second there is sin, and consequently a break in 
the continuity of perfect salvation. The very 

2IO 



Perfect Happiness • 211 

moment after the evil thought has been enter- 
tained it may be expelled, and the person fully- 
restored ; nevertheless there is a break, and there- 
fore no one should ever dare say, ''I live without 
sin." 

Under the old dispensation provision was 
made for sins of ignorance, negligence, mistakes, 
and infirmities. For all sins of this character, 
whether by the people, the prince, or the priest, 
confession had to be made and the sacrifice of- 
fered. 

Under the gospel dispensation the sacrifice 
has been offered and the atonement made by 
Jesus Christ for all our sins — willful sins, sins 
of ignorance, and sins of negligence. 

As none, not even the purest persons that 
walk the earth, are entirely free from sins of 
ignorance, we see clearly the force of God's 
words, ''There is no man that liveth and sinneth 
not." (i Kings viii, 46.) 

While entire sanctification does not admit of 
any willful sin, it does admit of a consciousness 
of infirmities and shortcomings. Shortcomings 
and infirmities are not therefore incompatible 
with entire sanctification. 



213 Perfect Happiness Retained 

The purest persons are conscious of mistakes, 
shortcomings, and great weaknesses. These 
they often deplore in the deepest humility. 
These innocent mistakes and infirmities all need 
the blood of atonement, and we rejoice and 
praise God that the blood of atonement covers 
them all, and more than meets every demand. 
Entire sanctification admits of many infirmities, 
but not one willful sin. 

We are commanded to be blameless, but not 
faultless. I have often used the following simple 
incident to illustrate this: A mother gave her 
little girl a handkerchief to hem. She gave the 
child a needle, thread, and thimble, and gave, her 
directions how the work should be done. The 
child followed the mother's directions as near 
as she possibly could. She did her very best to 
do just as the mother told her. When the work 
was finished she took it to her mother. The 
mother examined it. Some of the stitches were 
long and some of them were short ; some places 
the hem was wide, and at other places it was 
narrow, and at other places it was badly puck- 
ered. The work was not faultless ; but the child 
was blameless. She had gone according to the 



Perfect Happiness 



213 



mother's directions as nearly as possible, and 
had done the very best she could. The mother 
gave the child a smile of approval and a kiss of 
affection. With all the divine grace it is possible 
for us to have, we shall not be faultless; but we 
may be blameless. If we go according to God's 
directions just as near as we possibly can, though 
our acts may be very far from being faultless, 
we shall have the divine smile of approval and 
the infinite kiss of affection from our loving 
Heavenly Father. 

Nowhere in all the range of God's Word is 
there a single promise that God will make us 
perfect in judgment. The only perfection prom- 
ised in the Bible is the perfection of love. Mr. 
Wesley says: ''Another ground of these and a 
thousand mistakes is the not considering deeply 
that love is the highest gift of God. There is noth- 
ing higher in religion ; there is in effect, nothing 
else." Christian perfection, or entire sanctifi- 
cation, is loving God with all the heart, and all 
the soul, and all the mind, and all the strength. 
This is the highest spiritual mountain peak that 
can be gained here on the earth. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Growth 

In order to retain perfect love there must be 
constant growth. There is an infancy in entire 
sanctification as in justification. That old 
stereotyped phrase which you have so often 
heard is a very true one, "There is no standing 
still in religion." We are either advancing or 
retrograding; ascending or descending; nearing 
our home in heaven, or nearing a flaming hell. 
Paul said the members of the Corinthian Church 
were babes, and had to be fed on milk. They 
could not eat meat; that was a diet entirely too 
strong for them. They were not able to bear it. 
They had never grown since they were born into 
the kingdom of grace. They had little knowl- 
edge or influence, and were utterly inefificient ; 
and they had but very little joy, for they were 
quarreling with each other. They were weak 
in everything that goes to make up a healthy 
and vigorous Christian. There are some Chris- 
tians to-day like the members of that old Co- 

314 



Perfect Happiness 215 

rinthian Church. They have never grown since 
they entered the kingdom of grace. They are 
just as weak and just as helpless and just as ig- 
norant as when converted. They always have 
the same threadbare, thirty-or-forty-year-old ex- 
perience to relate. They have never grown in 
grace, and so have nothing new to tell. They 
can not bear the strong meat of the gospel. Give 
them the old, rugged doctrines of the gospel, and 
they become chronic dyspeptics, and sigh for 
"the good old days of the past." They are al- 
ways ready to say, "The former days were better 
than these." 

Why were the former days better to them 
than these? Simply because they have never 
grown. They are babes now, with not as much 
strength as they had when born into the king- 
dom of grace. God says, "Say not now that the 
former days were better than these." 

Why does God forbid our saying, "The for- 
mer days were better than these?" Because God 
wants us to grow. He wants every day we live 
to be better than the day last past. He wants 
us to know more every day, and rise higher 



2i6 Perfect Happiness Retained 

every day, and enjoy more every day; then we 
shall have a new and richer experience every day 
to tell. 

The Christian's pathway to the skies is an 
ascending pathway. Mountain peak of joy and 
knowledge in divine things rises above moun- 
tain peak, higher and higher and higher. 

Our experience may grow deeper, and wider, 
and richer, and grander. We go from a justified 
soul to a soul made perfect in love, from a soul 
made perfect in love to a soul glorified in body 
and spirit; then onward and upward forever and 
ever. 

The bliss of a saved soul when it first enters 
heaven is as far beyond the utmost perfection 
that can be attained in this world, as an adult 
Christian is above and beyond the infant. And 
the soul that has just entered heaven, and real- 
ized the bliss of the skies — a bliss infinitely above 
and beyond the bliss of the highest saint on 
earth — is only an infant in heavenly happiness. 
It has before it an eternity of widening and in- 
creasing joy. 

The attributes of God are infinite, and are 



Perfect Happi7iess 217 

capable of being eternally manifested. The de- 
sire of a soul for happiness is unlimited. God 
will satisfy every desire planted in the saved soul. 

As we rise here from one plane of enjoyment 
to another, so there. Standing upon the 
threshold of glory, with an infinite sweep of 
vision before us, faith will go forward to appre- 
hend a still higher plane, hope to anticipate, and 
love to enjoy. Standing upon this higher plane, 
with a wider range of vision before us, faith will 
go forward to apprehend a higher and grander 
plane, hope to anticipate, and by and by love 
will enjoy it. Reaching this, then another higher 
and more glorious still will rise in view, and so 
on forever. While the soul of the saved will be 
forever passing up from one plane of enjoyment 
to another, it will never reach the infinite. 

The saved soul is winged for an eternal flight. 
It will be forever ascending in knowledge, for- 
ever growing in power, the sweep of vision for- 
ever widening, the light forever brightening, the 
joy forever increasing, and the glory becoming 
more and more glorious forever. That is the 
destiny of a saved soul. As Paul tells us, 
''Changed from glory to glory." 



2i8 Perfect Happiness Retained 



"But," says one, "what about an unsaved 
soul?" 

Is it not true that the longer a man puts off 
becoming a Christian, the less inclination he has 
to become a Christian? God declares this; ob- 
servation and experience confirm it. 

God knew from the beginning all about the 
human heart, hence he says to the young, "Re- 
member now thy Creator in the days of thy 
youth, while the evil days come not, nor the 
years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no 
pleasure in them." (Ecclesiastes xii, i.) As the 
unsaved advance in years, they have less and less 
pleasure in divine things, and by and by they 
reach the point where they say, as God declares 
they will, "I have no pleasure in them." But 
few old persons are ever converted. Only now 
and then one. The great majority of Christians 
become so while young. 

The longer men sin, the farther they get away 
from God — the distance between them and God 
constantly increases, and, according to analogy, 
if they die as they have lived, the distance will 
increase forever. The Word and works of God 
are analogous and in perfect harinony. They 



Perfect Happiness 



219 



both teach the great truths. "The wicked shall 
go away into everlasting punishment." Hell is 
called the "bottomless pit." "The wicked shall 
be turned into hell" — into the "bottomless 
pit" — "and all the nations that forget God." 
They shall forever descend, but never reach the 
bottom, for the pit is bottomless. While the 
saved will be forever nearing God, the unsaved 
will be forever receding from God. The one will 
be forever ascending, the other forever descend- 
ing. I want to be on the rising grade, and not 
on the down grade. I want to be forever rising, 
and not forever sinking. I want to be forever 
nearing God, and not forever receding from God. 
I want my future pathway to be one that shall 
be forever brightening, and not forever darken- 
ing. One or the other it will be; which, depends 
upon my actions here. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Some Rules to be Observed in Order 
to Retain Perfect Happiness 

If you would retain the boon of perfect love, 
observe the following rules : 

1. Watch. "Eternal vigilance is the price of 
safety" in spiritual as well as national affairs. 
Christ's admonition must be heeded, "What I 
say unto you, I say unto all, watch." (Mark 
xiii, 37.) 

2. Pray. "Pray without ceasing." The 
wholly sanctified soul should live in an atmos- 
phere of prayer. This is easily done, and it is 
the only safe way to live. We may be in con- 
stant communion with our Heavenly Father. It 
is right to have special hours for secret prayer; 
but this is not enough. We may hold sweet and 
delightful communion with God all the time. As 
we lie down at night, as we rise up in the morn- 
ing, as we pursue our daily vocations, we may 
breathe forth ejaculatory prayers, and hear the 

sweet returning answers from our God. 

220 



Perfect Happiness 



221 



3. Live up to increasing light. As we travel 
along this heavenly way the light will shine with 
increasing splendor, and this increasing light will 
discover unto us new duties to be performed, 
increased surrender to God to be made, and 
things to be given up we never dreamed of be- 
fore. Whatever the Spirit tells you to do, do it 
without one moment's hesitation. 

4. Search the Scriptures. One evidence of 
our sanctification is an increased love for the 
study of the Word. Theodore Monod said: 
"When God sanctified my soul he gave me an 
illuminated edition of the Bible." Every fully 
saved soul has a feeling akin to this, ''His de- 
light is in the law of the Lord: and in his law 
doth he meditate day and night." (Psalm i, 2.) 
David says : ''Thy Word have I hid in my heart, 
that I might not sin against thee." (Psalm 
cxix, II.) Hide away in your heart the many 
great and precious promises of God. This can 
not be done without daily studying the Word. 

5. On proper occasions, without ostentation, 
tell what God has done for you, and give to him 
the glory. David says, "Come and hear, all ye 
that fear God, and I will declare what he hath 



222, Perfect Happiness Retained 



done for my soul." (Psalm Ixvi, i6.) Timothy 
"professed a good profession before many wit- 
nesses." (i Timothy vi, 12.) And Paul says, 
'%et us hold fast our profession." (Hebrews 
iv, 14.) 

6. Work for the benefit of others. I^abor un- 
ceasingly to make others happy. The Master 
went about doing good. Imitate the Master's 
example, and you will find in it a real luxury. 
No sweeter joy can come to the heart than the 
thought that we have done or said something 
that has benefited a fellow-being. The sweetest 
recollections of the past are the recollections of 
things done that have helped others. 

A very wealthy man determined to retire 
from business, and spend the balance of his days 
in ease. He built him a splendid mansion, sur- 
rounded it with beauty, and furnished it grandly. 
He had around him every earthly comfort that 
heart could wish. "Now," said he, "the balance 
of my life shall be one of rest and perfect joy." 
But in a few days he found himself more miser- 
able than he had ever been in all his life before. 
There was a dull monotony in every day, such 
as he had never before experienced. He became 



Perfect Happiness 223 

nervous and restless and discontented. His 
nervousness and discontent increased as the days 
and weeks passed by. Although he had every- 
thing that money could bring to make one 
happy, he became increasingly unhappy. Life 
became intolerable. He wanted to die. He de- 
termined that he would die. He started to a 
river near by, with his mind fully made up to 
drown himself. As he neared the stream he met 
a poor man, who asked him for a dime to buy a 
loaf of bread. He gave the dime. The poor 
man smiled, thanked him, and passed on. 

The smile and word of thanks from the poor 
man thrilled his soul with pleasure. It was a 
small act of kindness ; but O ! what joy it brought 
to his heart ! It was an act that benefited an- 
other, and that deed of kindness had a reflex in- 
fluence. It came back to bless the giver far 
more than the receiver. A new world opened 
before him. A new light seemed to shine all 
around him. He said, "If the giving of that 
dime to help that poor man has made me so 
happy, why may I not do another act of the same 
kind? Why should I put an end to my life?" 
He returned to his mansion, consecrated him- 



224 Perfect Happiness Retained 

self and all he had to God, and spent the rest of 
his life in laboring for others. And from that 
time on no happier man lived than he. 

Live to make others happy, and you yourself 
will be happy. 

Follow rigidly the above rules, and you will 
never lose perfect love. You will grow, you will 
run up the shining way with increasing rapidity 
and alacrity, and this shining way will grow 
brighter and brighter. 

We earnestly entreat every one who may read 
these pages to come up to this high plane of per- 
fect love. Come to this place of perfect and de- 
lightful rest. We close this book in the lan- 
guage of another. We ask you to come, "not 
to sobs, but songs; not to tears, but joys; 
not to slavery, but freedom; not to long faces 
and doleful feelings, but to countenances made 
radiant with divine love, to hearts filled with joy 
unspeakable, to lives beautiful with the beauty 
of holiness, and made fragrant forever with the 
odor of good deeds." 



AUG 18 IS?'^ 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

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